Transformations
by nomad62
Summary: The Blue Hands initiate a new strategy for separating Simon and River from the rest of Serenity's crew. Mal gets drugged and Jayne and Inara get captured causing Jayne to reveal the truth about his past. First in series. 1 Year post BDM. Joss owns all
1. Prolog

_A/N: Thanks to Badkarma00 for previewing and critiquing. The suggestions definitely made for a better story. Thanks also to Fabledfigment and anyone else who may recognize a piece or two here and there._

_This is my first attempt at a fanfiction reviews and critiques are welcome._

Prolog

The six foul looking men and one woman looked distinctly out of place in the sterile room dominated by a huge black conference table. Each dressed in his or her version of Rim scum sheik, from the monstrously obese woman wearing raw Fleagian silk that glittered as it struggled to restrain the rolls of fat bulging against it, to the cadaverous man with dead eyes dressed in the clothes of a core dandy. The underlying sense of filth that they exude resists any attempt to be disguised by pretty clothing. They represented the worst of the Rim drug lords, whore masters, pirates and slavers. It almost appeared as if someone had consciously gathered the living images of the seven deadly sins in one place. They snarl and growl at each other in an instinctive dance of dominance thrown oddly out of sync by their discomfort. Fingers tug at sleeves and hands grope at waistbands seeking the reassuring feeling of weapons not there.

The snarls fade when the door opens. They gape at the sight of the two strange men that step into the room. Short hair, pale skin, identical pale blue suits with bright blue gloves on their hands, the men exude a sense of wrongness that causes even these tiānshā de èmó to ease back. Blue hands clasped in front of them the two men stood at the head of the black table. Holograms of Serenity's seven crew members appear down the center of the table.

The two men with hands of blue each speak, one then the other as if they share a single brain, each sentence following on the other as if spoken by one person. "These seven people travel together. We wish you to separate them. Single them out one at a time and capture them, use them, do whatever you wish to them, except you may not kill them – yet." Except for these two." River and Simon Tam's holographs enlarge. "These two you will not touch. You will not even touch any of the others if one of these two is present.

"These instructions are not negotiable. You may fail to take them, but if touch the two or kill one of the five prematurely there will be consequences." Almost as one the scumlords spasm, their eyes darting from one face to the next as the pressure in their heads builds. The hugely obese woman is the first to gasp as she notices blood running out of the nose of the man across from her. Her hands fly to her own face and she examines the blood smeared on her fingertips. As if pulled by a string, the gazes of the scum lords return to the unmarked faces of the men with hands of blue. Just as quickly as it came the pressure is gone.

Seven openings appear in the table and sterile packets of blue gloves appear in front of each of them. You will leave one of these gloves when you take one of the five. It is important that these be placed where they will be found." Beneath the glove packets is a sheet covered with skin colored, centimeter square patches. "Have the people involved in the capture wear one of these patches if you wish to have any success. These patches will dissolve into the skin and last for 30 days. When you capture one of these five, place one of the patches on the prisoner at the base of the skull. You will need to replace the patch every 30 days until you hear from us. It would be to your advantage if you can place the patch while your victim is yet unaware."

"You will each receive 50,000 credits in advance. An additional 25,000 may be earned with the proof of capture for each of these people." Once again the table regurgitated packets in front of the seven people. "The necessary information about these people is also contained in these packets."

The door opened and the men with hands of blue walked out.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Zoe hated this city, the combination of rough frontier and high tech was hard on the perceptions. Raggedy wooden buildings, usually found on the Rim, stood next to plasteel constructions straight off the core worlds. Situated at the north pole on Bartell's Moon, Randolf City sported a blanket of snow and ice year round. The reason it existed at all was the high tech mining of Druedlium. And it was gorram COLD, it never got above freezing here and at night, like it was now, it would have to warm up to be cold.

Figures they'd be stuck on this planet the first break in their delivery schedule they'd had in the last month. A fire in a warehouse on Besos had burned up the goods they were supposed to be picking up. Mal had been keeping Serenity hopping lately with all the legitimate goods he and River had been finding to transport, some of them had even been their own which made for some nice paydays. They'd been supposed to make a speed run and come back for Inara at the end of the week.

Mal had decided they'd just sit out the four days here and gave everyone time on land. He'd then come up with the bright idea to test Jayne and see if he was paying attention to his com. Mal made them all wear them any time off ship due to the speed deliveries they were doing now. Kaylee had Serenity's engine all slicked out and they could nearly run as fast as the little courier ships. Jayne was 0 for 3 in responding to his com on his times off ship, not that it was completely his fault, after all, his time off ship tended towards things that didn't interrupt very well, drinking and whoring. And of course Jayne didn't answer, so of course Mal dragged Zoe out to find him in this qīngwā cào de liúmáng cold weather.

"River! You there girl?" Zoe panted into the com as she staggered down the narrow snow packed alley carrying Mal over her shoulders in a fireman's carry, her mare's leg in her right hand.

"Go ahead Zoe, I'm here." River sat at the pilot console of Serenity channeling Wash as she played with the plastic dinosaurs. Currently, the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops were battling for domination of the wave screen. The Triceratops had the Rex cornered and was going for a kill.

River was taking a break from looking up commodities information on the Core. She had overheard Mal talking about how difficult it was to figure out where they should be looking for freight to carry a few months back and she had offered to help do the research. She was a big part of the reason they were now carrying just over 1/3 their own goods on each trip. She and Mal figured that by the end of the year they'd be at 100.

"Get Simon and meet me at the lock, I'm bringing the Captain in, think he's been drugged or something." She and Mal had split up to be able to hit the whorehouses quicker and as she came out of the last one in her block she'd spotted some folks dragging what looked like a corpse into the alley.

"Wha? How? I didn't see anything!" River dropped the dinosaurs. Then scrambled to get them and place them back in there proper locations. She always knew when there was a problem with any of the crew, she knew whether she was trying to or not, how could...

"Just move girl can't talk and carry this man at the same time, he's gorram heavy!"

River's mittened hands threw the blanket off her shoulders as she dashed down the hall to Kaylee's door and pounded on the outside, "Simon! SIMON!"

"Whats wrong swee..."

River interrupted Kaylee, "Simon, Zoe is bringing ba ba in, he's unconscious. But he shouldn't be because I can see him fine, can't see anything to hurt him... no voices or intents...I should have seen..."

"It's ok Mei Mei I'm coming" Simon interrupted, "Just go turn the heat on in the infirmary and grab my bag, I'll meet you at the lock." Simon and Kaylee jumped out of bed tripping and bumping into each other as they start grabbing clothes.

River ran to the infirmary to turn on the lights and heater. She stopped, her head poised like an animal listening, searching... "BaBa is not there, baba is stuck in a field of windmills all turning and circling but not going anywhere. I didn't notice, promised not to look, just the comforting ambiance of distant murmurs in the wind."

Zoe staggered into the airlock, gently lowered Mal to the floor and slapped the button for the lock to cycle. It cycled quickly, they were only using it to keep the heat from escaping the ship. The comforting heat rushed into the room as the inner doors separated, melting the snow and ice that had gathered on their clothing. River and Kaylee's voices enter with the warmth, "What happened...Is he ok...where..."

"Quiet please, so I can hear." Simon knelt in the doorway, stethoscope in his hand and immediately slid it under Mal's jacket and shirt to listen. "His heartbeat is strong though a bit slow and he seems to be breathing fine, lets get him on the board and into the infirmary. Zoe are you ok?"

"I'm fine, spotted some hun dan's draggin' him down an alley, shot one of the ones holdin' him and the other two just faded into the dark and left the Cap'n and the man I shot there."

Zoe rolled Mal onto his side as Simon slid the board under him, then rolled him back. Kaylee and Simon grabbed the handles by Mal's head and Zoe the ones at his feet, "Ok and up."

Mal lay on the medtable with a blanket covering him to his chest. Wires ran from leads on his chest to various blinking monitors. Simon picked up a sheet of paper as it fed out of the printer and examined it. "Well, he's been given a finely crafted barbiturate cocktail. His vitals are all good and based on his metabolism it appears he will be asleep for about another six hours."

"Can you wake him sooner?" asked Zoe, her face softening slightly with the knowledge that the Captain should be fine.

"To be honest it would probably take me that long to craft an antidote, it really is a fine piece of pharmacology, besides, I doubt we have all the drugs I would need to do so. It will be much safer to let him sleep it off." Simon frowned as he read the last few lines of the report. "There are also traces of several chemicals that show up as unknown, I'll need to continue running tests to see what they are or at least what they are effecting"

"Kaylee go see to the engine. I want us to be able to lift on short notice."

"Will do Zoe" Kaylee yells over her shoulder already on her way to the engine room.

Zoe followed River into the hallway, "River, you said you couldn't feel anything wrong with the Captain? Or anything going to happen?"

"No nothing, and now when I listen to him I see that his mind just goes in circles, no fear, no panic but not unconscious either hates the cold, angry at Inara, hates the snow, misses Inara, hates the cold... He seems fine if I'm not looking closely, but I don't try to because she promised." River's voice cracked, her already pale features seemed to lose even more color as she clenched her hands into fists, fighting to keep from panicking.

Zoe placed her hands on River's shoulders trying to comfort and stabilize her, "Easy River just breathe, focus on the breathing. Can you feel Jayne or Inara?"

River cocked her head to the side, her eyes gazing unseeing into the distance. "Jayne is thinking of breasts, nipples and genitalia, tasting and ... and well other things, but cannot tell if it is like baba. Jayne's mind follows but a single path when it comes to such things."

Zoe involuntarily coughed up a small chuckle, "That it does honey, you keep trying him, hopefully he is just not answering on account of he's drunk, although we couldn't find hide nor hair of im. What about Inara?"

River's eyes filled with water a single tear broke free and slid down her cheek. "I fear Inara is the same as baba, her mind is doing her companion greeting ceremony over and over again, calm and relaxed but she is not really there."

"Gorram it!" Zoe's face hardens, "go try and contact Inara, if you can't raise her see if you can get a lock on her shuttle. And River you can't lose it girl, we're gonna need you if things are really as bad as they're lookin!" River had been very stable for some time now. She occasionally had a bad night which kept her out of things for the day but that only happened once a week or so, and she hadn't been having any problems at all on the days she woke up fine. Zoe shivered as she watched River's face transform into what Zoe thinks of as her crazy killer look. "Not sure we need you to go there just yet Ni Zi."

In a distant ice cold monotone River responded, "Not necessary for killing she knows, but necessary for the distancing of emotion to be able to function."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Yesterday had started out predictably, Inara had gotten up and prepared her shuttle to go meet her client, Jonathan Randolf III. She had had a fight with Mal when he started prickling at her about having a client. They had that fight down pat, they had had it so often the last few months. She had stopped taking clients that included sex for the first few months after Miranda. Mal had encouraged her to stay but that was about it, nothing much else had changed between them. He hadn't really believed she wasn't having sex with her clients. So she had gone back to business as usual. She hadn't said anything to Mal about it specifically, just stopped telling him she wasn't sleeping with them. She had come to the conclusion that she was going to have to leave permanently, she really didn't want to leave Serenity and those she considered family but things with Mal couldn't keep on the way they were either.

Then the day had gotten immeasurably worse.

Upon opening the shuttle to greet her client she was grabbed by her head and thrown to the floor face down, the man pressed something to the base of her skull then dragged her over and tied her to a chair. 'Jonathan' had informed her that she had been 'given' to him and that he "had a knack for training her kind."

His instructions had been simple, she wasn't to do anything she hadn't been told. That included talking, struggling, flinching or even whimpering and she was to immediately do anything she was told, without hesitation. He had then sliced her dress from neck to hem and laid it open, then cut away her underthings. He had caressed her thoroughly from her neck on down to her feet and any time she struggled, spoke or even flinched he would casually slap her and start over again. The first time he was gentle. Other times he caused pain, squeezing her breasts or probing at her entrance until she cried out. He would calmly slap her and do it again. He was at her constantly, calmly issuing instructions, slapping and starting over. He hadn't raped her body, rather he explained that he didn't sex up unwilling women and that by the time he did sex her up, she would want it every bit as much as he did.

Finally he fed her. Sort of. He'd made her kneel on the floor, then placed a bowl of protein paste in front of her and made her eat the entire bowl, one command to eat at a time. At one point when she had gagged and nearly vomited, he slapped her, which strangely enough had kept her from throwing up.

The worst humiliation had been when he took her to the bathroom. He had taken her in and told her to sit then just stared at her. The pressure in her bladder had finally reached a point where she was able to start going in spite of his stare but with the first trickle he had slapped her. She had been so stunned she fell to the floor, not from the blow as much as from the shock and confusion. "You don't do anything until I tell you." He had dragged her back up to sit and then just watched her. It was so much harder to hold it after having started once, and she hadn't gone enough to relieve any pressure. Finally, when it wouldn't have mattered if he was going to blow her head off if she didn't keep waiting he said "go." The relief from her bladder had combined with relief at not being hit and had been such a rush she nearly felt grateful to him. Followed quickly by the shame and embarrassment of peeing on command.

Finally he had used a hypodermic to put her to sleep.

She had woken up the next morning feeling even less rested than when he had drugged her. The day had been filled with more of the same. After a time she was most afraid of him when he was gentle, her traitorous body had begun to respond to his caresses and words almost as if it enjoyed what he did. After a particularly gentle caress, Inara had felt tears fill her eyes and run down her cheeks. He had held her head in his hands and carefully wiped away the tears with calloused thumbs, "there now woman the body learns quicker'n the mind, its hard on ya til it catches up."

Inara had never before felt terror as great as what gripped her mind in that moment. She knew without a doubt she would fight with all her strength of mind. She also knew without a doubt that if this man had her long enough, she would be 'trained' to his commands. Réncí de Fozu, she hoped Mal, Jayne and Zoe would get here soon. Mal was pretty good with the rescuing even if she was tired of being around him. She really didn't have much hope of that though, they didn't expect her back for two more days.

Jonathan released her from the chair, "C'mon lets get you to the bathroom, got a long flight ahead of us, don't want you messin up the flyer." After the bathroom ritual he had used the hypodermic again.

Inara had come to, the first time, when they transfered her and Jayne from her shuttle to some sort of planetary flyer. She had been sad to see Jayne but it did ease her mind, maybe he could figure how to rescue them. The frigid outside air had been a tremendous shock even though it had only lasted a short time. They had thrown a blanket over her when they carried her over but it hadn't helped very much. At least it had been warm in the flyer. She had long since lost track of time. She kept fading in and out, but she thought they had been flying for at least a couple of hours. The ride was getting quite rough and it looked like a blizzard outside. The flyer was getting worked over pretty seriously, it was almost bouncing around as bad as atmosphere reentry except the turbulence didn't end.

The one bright point was that 'Jonathan' wasn't on the flyer and she knew he had planned to be, she wasn't sure where Jayne had come from but maybe he'd managed to kill Jonathan before he got captured.

Inara hoped Jayne was ok, every time the flyer bounced and twisted she could hear him hit the floor or wall.

The first thing Jayne noticed as he woke up was the pain, gorram it, he'd been in a brawl. He smiled to himself a bit, hope I won. The second thing was the taste in his mouth, he knew that taste, that taste was why he didn't kiss the whores on the mouth anymore. GORRAM IT! If they're starting to put that stuff other places his days of whoren' was gonna be all sorts of messed up, he was gonna kill the qīngwā cào de liúmáng that had done this. The third thing happened right then, the floor dropped right out from under him and he had a couple of seconds of freefall then Whoof, the floor hit him and knocked the air right out of him. Ok, maybe he hadn't been in a brawl, that ruttin hurt! Things just kept getting better and better.

Well, they was gonna be a site better once he got up and found out what the gorram hell was going on. That's when he noticed the fourth thing and quite possibly the worst, his hands and feet were cuffed. Hmmm, might not be the worst thing, the thing with the whores using the goodnight kiss stuff other places might be worst in the long run, he'd have to think on that some. He chuckled, shiney whoever the bai chi was that had cuffed 'im had used the whore's cuffs. They had a little button on 'em that opened them right up, he'd save that for when he had a better idea of what the guĭ was going on. Uh oh, lost the floor again, Wooof, thump. Who the hell was flyin this gorram thing anyway, that was the wall and the floor both that time.

Jayne finally worked his way to his knees and looked over the partition to the front of the flyer. Inara! And all tied up from the looks of it. Looks pretty worked over too. Gorram that woman was amazing, if any woman could look somehow dignified and in control all while bein' tied up with her clothes half tore off it was Inara. He looked past her towards the hundan pilotin' the craft just in time to see a mountain appear in forward screen. "Wáng bā dàn! He yelled."

The world exploded.

Jayne came to slowly, this time he felt like he had been in a brawl and definitely lost. The smoky coppery taste in his mouth this time spoke of a broken tooth and blood. He felt around his teeth with his tongue, yup lost most of one. Fuck the cuffs, he pressed the safety button and felt a click as they released and slid off of his wrists. Seemed like half the cargo was piled on top of him. Grunting and shoving he managed to push most of the boxes off. Grimacing he bent his legs up and found that the restraints on his ankles were similar to the ones on his wrists and very easy to remove. He sneered, much as he appreciated it at the moment, he was disgusted with the fēng le shăguā that had been responsible. Jayne hated to see a job so poorly done.

Wŏ de mā, no wonder he had half the cargo piled on top of him, the gorram flyer was upside down. All manner and size of boxes were scattered around along with a pile of blankets that he had landed on. Good luck for him. He spotted Inara still strapped and tied into her seat. Looked like she was unconscious, or dead there was a gorram **lot** of blood. Jayne frantically plowed his way over to her, lăo tiān bù don't let her be dead!

Jayne pressed his fingertips to her neck praying for a pulse. It was there but very weak. A groan from the pilot area caught his attention. First things first. Stumbling and kicking boxes of cargo and loose items out of his way he pushed to the front. One pilot was dead, only his spine held his head still attached. The other pilot flopped his arm up trying unsuccessfully to unlatch his safety harness. Jayne wondered momentarily if he should let the pilot live awhile in order to find out what the gorram hell was going on. Fuck it, Jayne was gonna be busy taking care of Inara and didn't want to have to watch this húnqiú at the same time. Grabbing the pilot's chin in one hand and the back of his head in the other Jayne gave a quick twist, breaking the pilot's neck. Starting to turn away, Jayne noticed a combat knife strapped across the pilots chest. Shiny, sure as guĭ gonna need that.

Not wanting to move Inara until he was sure he wouldn't hurt her worse, Jayne gave her a quick exam. He began talking in a soft gentle voice tellin' her what he was doin' and that everything was gonna be all right. Lookin' her over was made easy by the fact that her clothes was mostly cut off and left the front of her body bare.

Go se, a shard of metal 8 or 10 inches long and about 2 inches wide had punctured her thigh dead center of the quad almost at the hip, pinning her leg to the seat. The wound was bleeding but nothing particularly serious yet, so it hadn't clipped the artery. It would bleed plenty once he pulled the metal out. He was sure as hell she had more than a couple of broke ribs, a wide band of bruising was beginning to show up across her rib cage. He hoped they weren't poking anything inside her as there wasn't a ruttin thing he could do for that.

She had a shitload of lesser cuts and bruises some of which were shaped suspiciously like a hands and fingers, the ones on her breast in particular. Inara whimpered as his anger bled into his voice. He fought the white rage that filled him down, wouldn't help anything right now but he sure hoped it had been the pilot he killed that made the marks.

The wound that worried him was to her head, he could take care of gashes and stuff pretty good, even the one on her leg. Her beautiful black hair was matted in blood. A deep gash near her temple was bleeding heavily. He cut a piece off of Inara's silk dress and folded it up, then used a strip cut from a blanket to bandaged her head. The wound needed disinfecting and stuff but time enough for that after he got her cut down, he just wanted the blood stopped for now.

Cutting another long strip of blanket he fashioned a tourniquet for her leg and tied that off just above the strip of metal. Using a firm steady pressure he pulled the long shard out of her leg. He prayed he wasn't pulling too much shit into the wound from the other side. Her moan of pain, even though unconscious, sent a slash of hurt into his heart. "Sorry băobèi, couldn't be helped." Fresh blood oozed out of the wound but not as bad as he had feared. Her being upside down probably helped that a bit. Using more silk from her dress and pieces of blanket he quickly bandaged her leg tight, getting the bleeding pretty much stopped.

Bracing her shoulders against his chest, Jayne unbuckled the harness holding her into the seat. He shifted up so that the weight of her own body wouldn't push on her ribs causing more damage there. Quickly he cut the quick tie holding her arm to the armrest. Shifting her slightly so that her arm would slide down against her stomach rather than flop loose he cut the other wrist free. Raising himself up he was able to cut her ankles loose and quickly catch her under her legs and lower her to the floor.

That was all he could do at the moment. Jayne really hoped he would find a medical kit or some such stashed away in all this gōushī.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

River landed the second shuttle next to Inara's. Unable to raise either Inara or Jayne by com she had finally tracked Inara's shuttle to the ice field outside town. Having to focus so completely in order to fly through the blizzard had enabled her to ease up on the crazy killer mode and maintain her ability to function.

Zoe buttoned up her heavy coat and pulled on half gloves that left her trigger finger uncovered so she could use her weapons. She pulled out her mare's leg and checked it for about the 15th time. "River you hold here, be ready to come cover me if needed or fire up the shuttle and get us the hell gone if things go south.

"I don't feel anyone near but its not something you should rely on, I haven't felt any of what has happened today." River directed the outside spotlight onto the shuttle lock. "It looks like Inara's shuttle is open."

Zoe opened the door, mildly surprised that it opened easily, apparently River had positioned the shuttle precisely so that the wind would be blocked.

"Shouldn't be surprised", River said into the com. Then realized how closely she had been monitoring Zoe's thoughts. "Oh, sorry, with so many that I can't feel right I've been listening to the rest of you more closely than usual." River flinched at having answered Zoe's thought.

"Honey far as I'm concerned you go right ahead til we figure things out." Momentarily Zoe's mind flashed to the blue glove she had found near the Captain. "Go Se!"

River gasps, "NOO!"

"Stop it girl, only reason I didn't mention it is cuz I need you functioning. You hold it together. Inara needs you, Jayne needs you, hell we all need you!"

"I...I'll try."

"You do better than try River, far as we know ain't no one dead or even bad hurt yet, lets try and keep it that way." Zoe gave her a few seconds to recover, "I'm about ready to go into Inara's shuttle, you with me here? You able to do whats needin if it happens fast?" Zoe had reached the end of shuttle two and had a small gap filled with blowing snow and gusting wind to dash across before she could enter Inara's shuttle.

River took a deep breath, the planes of her face hardening, not quite into crazy killer mode, but more focused and clear, "Ready now, thank you."

Relieved at the confidence in River's tone Zoe dashed across the opening into the doorway pointing her flashlight into the shuttle. The insides of the shuttle where in major disarray. Zoe couldn't tell whether it was from the wind whistling around or something done by people. Her footsteps crunched as she walked on the beautiful tapestries that usually hung on the walls. She searched anywhere that might hide a body. "No one in here, gonna see if the shuttle's still working."

Zoe closed the door and headed for the pilots compartment. With a flick of a few switches the lighting came on and the shuttle began to power up. "Seems ok, once it gets powered up I'll follow you back to Serenity. We can look it over good once we get it back."

"Lift when you are ready and I will take the lead." River lifted the shuttle up and hovered about 50 feet away slowly rotating the light to watch the area around Inara's shuttle.

Inara's shuttle locked onto Serenity with a clank. Zoe took a deep breath and let out some tension, flying in the blizzard had been a wáng bā dàn. She headed down to the infirmary to check on the Captain. She'd let the shuttle thaw out a bit before they checked it out to see what they could find.

"How's he doin' Doc?", Zoe asked as she looked Mal over.

"Pretty much the same, he should start waking up before long. I haven't been able find much out about those unknown chemicals. I've been building a baseline on his metabolic effects on them to see how long they will be in his system, so I should have a solid idea on that by the time he wakes up." Simon frowned as he compared two readouts. "It's odd, they don't seem to have been administered in the same way as the drug cocktail that knocked him out. "

"Probabilities exceed 74.38 that unknown drugs correlate directly to unknown effects hiding him from me," River stated. "Not really enough for surety but enough for starting hypothesis." River glared at Mal as if she could bore through the nonsense in his brain if she focused hard enough.

"That does make sense", Simon agreed. "I'll run some tests focusing on his brain and see what I can determine. We really don't have the equipment to get detailed information, but I'll try."

"Do what ya can Doc." Zoe activated the com, "Kaylee you able to come up to the infirmary right now?"

"Sure Zoe, Cap'n's ok, ain't he?" Kaylee's natural cheer couldn't hide her worry.

"Doc says so, just want a little meeting."

"K, I'm on my way"

Zoe paced, slapping her gloves against her hand and thinking. She would stop every once in awhile and stare at Mal. They needed to start looking for Inara and Jayne but with the Captain down her resources were mighty slim. She'd feel a gorram site better out in the black where no one could come up on them. Seemed like someone was making a big run at them and the blue glove implied who. But the method was very different from the way the blue hands had operated in the past, much more obvious. And they weren't gonna find Inara and Jayne from out in the black.

"River you read any change in Jayne?" Zoe asked.

River shook her head, "No I'm pretty sure its the same as Inara and Baba, it is identical to what he was thinking before. No surety though."

Zoe wished she knew for sure if Jayne was down or just drunk.

Kaylee came in and went straight to Mal and gently grasped his hand in hers. "He gonna be up soon?" She looked at Simon.

"Yes, sometime in the next hour I think."

"Any of you hear Inara's client's name? Need to get some idea where or when she went missing n I reckon that'd be the place to start." Zoe stopped her pacing.

All three shook their heads.

"The were orange like they always are before she sees a client but no name." River stated emphatically. The crew had long been able to decipher Rivers color coded statements.

Kaylee rubbed Mal's chest with affection, "Wish they'd get themselves sorted out, tain't healthy for neither of 'em."

Simon grinned at Kaylee and blushed. He and Kaylee had gotten "sorted out" a few months previously when an uncharacteristically aggressive Kaylee had cornered him in his room and to quote her "chewed him out and jumped his bones". Actually what she had done was walk in to his room close the door, get undressed and climb right into bed with him and told him flat out she didn't want any more courting. They was either gonna get to the sexin or not but either way no more courting.

"River see if you can hack Inara's waves and see who she was talking to, Kaylee you and me are gonna search her shuttle see what we can find."

Zoe stopped at the door, "Doc you let me know soon as he starts to wake."

Kaylee's idea of searching the shuttle was to wander through picking items up and think back on her times in the shuttle with Inara. She loved Inara and the shuttle, they represented all that she imagined the core to be, glamorous, sexy and full of beautiful things.

Zoe was much more focused so saw it first when Kaylee picked up one of the tapestries and caressed it as she wrapped it up in her arms. Jayne's gun and gun belt had been lying on the floor under the tapestry. Tied to the trigger guard of the gun was a blue glove.

River spun around in the pilot seat where she had been hacking Inara's comp. Tears filled her eyes and her chin was shaking.

Jolted out of her memories by River's quick movement, Kaylee looked where River was staring and gasped jumping back like she had seen a poisonous snake.

"River! They ain't here so no need to get yourself all worked up." Zoe commanded.

River frowned at Zoe.

Shrugging Zoe stated, "Somehow can't picture them hun dan's wandering around peeling off their gloves all dainty like and dropping them just for us to find." Zoe tried desperately to ease River's mind.

The image in Zoe's mind of a man wearing blue gloves prancing about all girlish and peeling off gloves caused River to give a tense little giggle.

"Could be its just some folks that know a bit about things is all."

River rolled her eyes at Zoe giving her a 'yeah right' look.

"I know, it'd be a lot for them to know, but it don't mean They're here. Right now we don't know much of anything." Zoe picked up the gun belt casual like and wandered over to the pilot console. "Speakin of not knowin, you find anything?"

Turning back to the console, River called up a picture, "I was able to get into her logs and this is the man she contracted with, his name is Jonathan Randolf. Oddly the contact id doesn't work so I am currently searching the planet's directory to see if I can find a different id."

Zoe said, "I don't think your gonna find anything for him River."

River looked up.

"That's the hun dan I killed that was draggin the Cap'n off."

"Zoe! I found another glove!" Kaylee held up Inara's teapot which she had found under the edge of the couch. Tied to the handle was another blue glove.

"Well that's three." Zoe looked around the shuttle. "Don't look like we're gonna find out much more here, looks like wind did most of this mess don't look like any strugglin took place."

The computer beeped and River checked the screen, "There is no listing for a Jonathan Randolf within the last six months." River shrugged, "But..."

"Yea doesn't seem likely to help out much. We can always search further back later if..."

Simon's voice crackled out of the com, "Zoe he's coming around."

By the time the three of them could get near the infirmary an argument about whether or not Mal should get up yet was in high gear.

"Fine but if you fall down and crack your skull open don't come running to me to sew it up," Simon shouted. He continued more calmly, "But I want you back in here every six hours or so. I need to check on those other chemicals I told you about. We need to know whats going on with them."

Zoe grinned despite the situation, seemed like when Mal found an argument he liked he used it every chance he got. Man didn't have but about three whole arguments in im, maybe four, he had two for doc, one for Inara and one for Jayne. He'd whip one out and pick at people so he could yell when he was frustrated. Wasn't a gorram thing getting up right this instant would help.

"Couldn't agree more Doc," Mal was holding on to the door jam, obviously just making sure it didn't run away since he was fine.

Mal caught site of Zoe and gave her a quick nod by way of 'thank you for saving my ass'. "Doc here filled me in a bit on whats been going on."

Kaylee ran up and gave Mal a big hug almost making him lose his grip on the door jam. "Cap'n" she squealed. She frowned up at him, "You feelin ok?"

Mal stroked her hair giving her a little hug, "I'm fine mei mei, little wobbly is all and a couple little men with big pick axes pounding on my gorram head." He spotted River lurking back peeking around the corner. "Why you hidin' back there Ni Zi, you ok?"

"It's my fault, couldn't see you. Couldn't help." River ducked back around the corner.

"Aw it ain't your fault River! Tell her Cap'n." Kaylee went to River and gave her a hug and pulled her out from behind the corner.

River stood in her arms not returning the hug, her head hung low.

"She's right mei mei, I know you're kinda used ta knowing everything before it happens but I conjure it sure ain't your fault when ya can't." Mal let go of the doorway and wobbled before grabbing it again. "I'd come hug you but some hun dan keeps moving the walkway around and I'm afraid I'd fall over." He held out his arm for her to come to him.

Normally River would have tasted Mal's emotions to know if he was being truthful but since she couldn't feel him she was more lost than usual. With a little push from Kaylee, she moved slowly towards him, her arms stiff at her side.

Mal leaned his back against the wall and pulled River into a big two armed hug, his hand rubbing circles on her back to comfort her. "There now things'll be fine," he said as she finally began to return his hug and sniffled against his chest. "Ok, now that we've got that settled, Zoe, what do we know?"

"Nothing good Sir," Zoe pulled the three gloves out of her pocket and showed them to Mal, then proceeded to fill him in.

Mal took the gloves from her.

"I can't think of much else to do but try and find where Jayne was when he got took. He wouldn't a gone far bein' its so cold out an all. Might could check a few more of the bars and whorehouses further from the port."

Mal shook his head, "I don't think that'll do any good. Hell for all we know they could be off the bèn tiānshēng planet by now."

"Don't think so sir, if they'd a been headed to the black don't think they would've taken Inara's shuttle down to the ice field. Figure they changed to some other transport."

"Whats not there makes it obvious that what we seek is here."

Mal looked at the other three hoping someone else had a clue.

"River, honey, you mean you can still feel them like before?" Zoe asked.

River nodded.

"Wait, I thought she couldn't feel us anymore?" Mal asked. If it hadn't been for the situation Mal would've been pretty happy with that occurrence. He had a lot of unpleasantness floating around in his head it just didn't make him happy to have River see.

"No sir, she can't read you all but she seems to see something going on in your heads."

Mal frowned, "Zoe, I generally look to you for clarity, that didn't help much more than what she said."

Zoe's lips quirked up in the tiniest of smiles, "Camouflage sir, you can see the camoflage, just can't see whats behind it."

"Thats better." Mal pondered for a moment, "Mei mei, can you see where the camouflage is?

River shook her head, then brightened up, "I can examine the probabilities based on travel modes, the direction of the shuttle from the city and extrapolate pathways." She grinned proudly as the other four looked at each other helplessly. "Search grid based on types of transportation they may have used from the shuttle." She had gotten better at rephrasing her more confusing statements. It was mostly her thinking out loud, now that she could keep track of what she had said she could dumb it down for the rest of them.

"Gorram fine idea, you get on that, we'll get ready to take shuttle two hunting." Mal wobbled toward the shuttle.

"Sir, there is a full on blizzard blowing out there right now, won't be able to search for anything til that dies down, might want to get some rest while River does her thing." Zoe caught the Captain under his shoulder and held him up as he tried to turn and look at her.

"Blizzard? Didn't no one say we had a gorram blizzard on top of everything."

"Sorry sir, thought you knew, you were out in it when I found you."

"Oh, right, so I was, wasn't thinking so good there for a second."

"Yes sir, perhaps you should rest some to help that out." Zoe said.

Mal studied her face for any indication of sarcasm, "May be right at that, you get that shuttle ready and wake me up soon as we can go." He put his hand against the wall, I'll go rest a little in the infirmary." Much as he hated to go back in there to lie down after just arguing with Doc about getting up, he wasn't a big enough fēng le shăguā to go and try to climb down the ladder to his bunk.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Jayne looked around the cabin of the flyer at the collection of gear. Seemed like god and the devil themselves was playing a game of good-news, bad-news with them. He had found a medkit with plenty of sterile bandages, needle and thread and plenty of shots of painkiller, but no skin weave, healin foam, bonemend, antiseptic or antibiotics. He'd found a couple of bottles of whiskey that didn't break by some miracle, but he couldn't drink em cuz he needed to hold on to them for disinfecting Inara's wounds.

Jayne was thankful that Inara was still unconscious, though it worried him some too, had made it a bunch easier to see to her wounds. Being around the Doc had made Jayne a bit rusty at the whole medic thing but a man didn't spend near on 20 years fighting as a merc without learning a good bit about wounds. Inara's leg wound worried him a good deal, he'd had to cut the entrance and exit wounds up a bit more in order to get em cleaned out good and get the whiskey all through em. He'd used the tourniquet again to keep the blood flow down which weren't the best but he'd had to make do. He hadn't sewn the wound shut so it could drain and he could keep an eye on it for infection, wouldn't do to have the outsides heal over an infected inside. He did bandage it good to keep the bleeding down.

He reckoned doc would have to do some fixin on that for her so she could go back to bein a companion. She made a fuss about having to be perfect for her clients and a scar like that wound was gonna leave might put a few a her prissy type clients off. Personally he didn't have no such problem with a scar or two on a woman, to his mind it added character.

The rest of her injury's weren't much problem unless she had a bad concussion. He'd sewn up the gash on her head and a few other cuts not nearly as bad. He'd used the smallest stitch he could, wouldn't hardly be a line there once they healed but he figured doc could fix them up to when they got back if she wanted. Wrapping her ribs up had finished all he could do for her. He weren't real sure about givin her a pain shot what with her head all banged up but went with the theory that less pain was better all around.

Jayne found a portable heater and had that set up for now, but portable just meant you could lift it, it was 25lbs of dead weight and since he figured he'd probably be carrying Inara somehow he weren't sure he'd be able to take it with em if they had to hike out. It didn't put out enough heat to make a space as big as the flyer very warm but it would keep em from freezing.

There had also been a gorram locker full of weapons and ammo and it made him feel all kinds of better to be armed again. They weren't Vera but there was a right shiny sniper rifle. It was an Alliance special ops weapon good for a kill out to damn near two miles. Had a hell of a scope on it too, it was regular, infrared or nightvision capable. Had about 500 rounds of ammo for it too which given Jayne's shootin skills and the rifle's accuracy meant about 450 dead people. They wouldn't be able to take em all but they weren't gonna be helpless when they left. He selected a couple of small handguns for Inara and a couple bigger ones for him plus a couple of automatic rifles and plenty of ammo for all. Except for the fact he couldn't take em all that was the only really all good thing that didn't have bad news attached..

There'd been packages of Alliance Grade A food so they had enough food for about a year just the two of em. Too bad it tasted like Simon's cooking. None of the coms he could find were usable, the one on the flyer was thrashed and the personal ones the pilots had were coded somehow. Assuming he could figure the coding out, the only people he could talk to were the bad guys.

There had been a mapcomp that still worked so he at least knew where they were, good news. They were about 300 miles from Randolf City but the way back was pretty much straight up and down, bad news. The next nearest place was about 500 miles south and it weren't much of a place, mostly a trapper rendezvous, might not even be a wave or com available, worse news.

He stripped the pilots and dragged their corpses outside. The flyer had fallen into fairly deep snow so he'd had to dig out from the broken front view screen to get em out. Jayne had dug right out into a full on blizzard. If he squinted real hard he'd just about been able to make out his hand in front of his face. Good news, weren't no one gonna be flying around up in the mountains trying to find them in that go se. Bad news, they was gonna have to leave before it let up, otherwise they'd just leave a big ai ya trail for anyone to see.

One of the pilots had been of a size for some clothes that could kinda sorta be used by Inara, he'd have to see about takin' them in some for her, but the other's coat didn't work for Jayne by a long shot. He had to make do with making a layered poncho type coat out of some blankets.

Jayne was drop dead tired. After going back and forth a few times arguing with himself he decided maybe they could spare him a couple sips of the whiskey. He made up a sleeping pallet next to Inara and had him a sip or two of the whiskey while he made his plans for the next day and played with his new rifle. Before long he was out cold.

Inara's moan brought Jayne out of a dead sleep. Raising up on his elbow he gently brushed her hair back from her face. "Inara? Hey there, you awake finally?"

Inara moaned again, then as consciousness seeped in a bit more she jerked and weakly tried to fight her way out of the blankets. Jayne had been afraid she might wake like that so he'd her wrapped up tight so she couldn't hurt herself.

"Shhhh băobèi, don't thrash around you'll hurt yourself, everything is fine. It's Jayne, I'm takin' care of ya. Shh, its Jayne, Inara."

"Wha..Jayne?" She tried to focus her eyes on his face. "All blurry can't see. It really you?" she slurred.

"Yea its me, every thing's ok." He gently comforted her, stroking her face.

"You kill them all for me?" Inara didn't remember much but she did remember a shadowy shape with hurting hands and the two men that had been carrying her.

Jayne weren't rightly sure who 'all' was, he'd only killed the one and that hadn't really been much, crash had got the other, but he didn't figure now was the time for complicated explanin, "yea I killed em."

She wrinkled up her nose and half frowned at him, "Smell whisky. You drun?"

It was really pretty cute, he could tell she weren't but about half there. She looked cute as a kitten sticking its head out of a blanket. He chuckled, "all I done for you and you gonna accuse me a bein' drunk?"

She thought about that a second, "S'ok if you are, long as you killed them." She snuggled her face into his hand a little.

"Well I ain't drunk, you're the one all covered in whiskey for a change, had ta use it to clean up your wounds a bit, you got banged up pretty good. How ya feeling?" He raised her head up a bit and put a canteen of water to her lips. "Here drink some if ya can."

Inara winced as he raised her up, "Hurts" then took a few sips.

He lowered her back down.

"How did I get hu..." Inara drifted to sleep.

Jayne listened to her breathing and decided she was sleeping this time rather than unconscious. He felt better about how she was doing now that she was just resting.

Jayne tucked her blankets in a bit tighter and caressed her face again. The corners of his mouth twitched up just a second as she nudged into his hand. Gorram, it was just weird seeing her like a normal person, he was so used to the whole arrogant companion act.

Covering himself up, Jayne went back to sleep watching her.

Jayne was up early, or at least so he thought, hard as guĭ to tell exactly what time it was with the blizzard still blowin' hard. He hadn't really thought to take one of the pilot's watches, but really it didn't much matter what time it was.

He made some broth for Inara on the heater and coaxed her awake enough to drink some down, then drugged her up good so he could check on her injuries. She freaked out some when she saw her leg, then passed out when he had had to probe it a bit and get some more whiskey into it. He was still real worried about infection, them not having any antibiotics. He changed all her bandages, then wrapped her back up in the blankets.

Jayne studied the mapcomp and selected a route out of the mountains, then started to take apart some of the shelving along the back of the flyer. He figured he could cobble together some sort of toboggan out of the pieces. That would be the easiest way to move Inara and would let them gear up good. Using a couple of rolls of flash weld tape he'd found, he got the toboggan put together all sturdy in a couple of hours. Warn't gonna win no beauty prizes but seemed like it'd be functional.

They just needed to get a mile or two away from the flyer so that there wouldn't be any sign of them should anyone come looking. Then they could hole up for a time after the storm lifted to let Inara heal up some and give anyone come looking time to find the flyer and leave again before they started leaving a trail. There'd been a crate of limpet mines wrapped up tight in the weapons locker so he figured he'd blow the ruttin' flyer up good so if it was found no one would be able to tell how many was inside without they do a ton of work.

He spent the next few hours sorting through the cargo and packing and unpacking the toboggan to see what all they could manage to take with them. He also found a stash of snowshoes tucked in the back. Looked like these folks were definitely used to working in the snow.

When Jayne made more broth for Inara and went to wake her up, she was burning with a fever. Go se! He filled one of the smaller crates with some snow and unwrapped her some, laying a cold cloth on her forehead. He checked her leg wound and found it inflamed with a yellowish puss oozing out. The wound smelled bad too. She moaned as he applied pressure and tried to squeeze as much of the puss out as he could. Finally as he worked the puss out of the wound he found a small piece of gunk that looked like it might be foam from the seat and got it loose. Rinsing the wound out with the whiskey he felt bad about having drank some of it the day before.

Jayne sat with her all night wiping her face and neck with the cold cloth to try and keep the fever down. Long hours later her fever broke. He covered her good and fell asleep stroking her forehead.

Inara woke up slowly. She felt snuggly and warm. She looked around and saw Jayne's face about a foot from her own, he was snoring softly. She tried to shift her body so she could see better and the pain slammed through her from head to toe. "Réncí de Fozu" she gasped. Ai ya she hurt. Her head was throbbing, gasping had set off a bomb in her chest and some hun dan was stabbing her in the leg with a red hot poker. She tried to take small quick breaths and ease her way through it. To top it all off, in spite of the pain her bladder was letting her know that if she didn't do something soon she'd be wet as well.

"Jayne!" she croaked. His eyes popped open but took a second to focus.

"Inara, you ok?" He sat up, his concern showing clearly on his face. His eyes still dark from lack of sleep.

"Hurt bad. Bathroom bad." Breathing hurt too much to make full sentences.

"Oh", Jayne grabbed the hypodermic and gave her a shot for the pain. Within a few seconds he could see her relax as the pain eased. "You was running a bad fever last night so I was worried about..."

"Bathroom", she interrupted.

Gorram it he hadn't even thought about that, "Um, don't really have... well guess that don't matter... I don't...", Jayne looked around frantically praying for inspiration.

The pain meds had relaxed Inara enough that she couldn't help but giggle a little at the look of pure panic on the tough man's face. "Need something soon", she said.

Jayne spotted a smallish box that looked like it might do. He dumped all the bits and pieces out of it then cut a hole in the top. He helped her sit up and get positioned then started babbling about anything he could think of while staring at the ceiling, "I made a toboggan yesterday, was gonna get us out of here today but you was real sick for a long time so I think maybe we should wait until tomorrow I think the storm is gonna keep going for a few more days so shouldn't be a problem ..."

Inara interrupted his machine gun deliver, "Ok better now." Jayne settled her back down, tucking the blankets tight around her again. With the pain easing and her full bladder taken care of she felt a little more alert. "How bad am I hurt?"

Jayne filled her in on her injuries and told her about the crash while he warmed up some broth. "How'd they get you?"

Inara started to tell him but her voice broke as she remembered some of what had been happening to her. She shivered, blinking back the tears that filled her eyes and looked away.

Understanding that she wasn't ready to tell her story yet Jayne stroked her head a couple of times then got busy feeding her broth while he talked about his plans, "...so I figure since you ain't feverish anymore we'll rest up today and I'll get us moved out of here tomorrow. Blizzard is still going full out so I think we got time, they can last a week easy up here."

"Seems like you know quite a bit about this planet Jayne. I didn't realize you knew anything about the areas away from Randolf City."

Jayne's face tightened up some and he seemed to withdraw into himself, "Don't talk about it much, got stuck here, think it was my second ship after leavin' home. Anyway ain't much to do here if ya ain't a tech 'cept take to trappin. There was a lot of demand for 'natural' furs back in the core at that time and an old trapper takin' me in and taught me how to go about it. Earned a livin' doing that for a couple of years before I could get a job going back out. Reckon I'm gonna get a little shut eye, didn't sleep much last night."

Jayne straightened out his pallet and laid down on his side with his back to her.

Inara looked at his back for a moment. She was feeling more than a little lost and Jayne laying down with his back to her made her feel more alone than she could handle right now. "Jayne?" she whispered.

"Yea Inara?" his voice was already muzzy with sleep.

"I realize this is a very strange request coming from me since, well you and I have never been very close but do you think you could hold me a little bit? I ... I really need to feel safe right now." She surprised herself, realizing it was true, she would feel safer if he held her. She chuckled inwardly at the astonished look on his face, had anyone told her a week ago she would be inviting Jayne Cobb into her bed in order to feel safe, she would have either killed them or died laughing herself.

Jayne just stared at her. His mind was locked up. He must've been more asleep than he thought and mis-heard. "Wha... You... What was that again?"

Embarrassed at her weakness Inara tried to lighten things up, she gave him a little smile, "Whats this? Jayne Cobb invited to snuggle with me and he has to think about it? I must be slipping horribly."

Jayne grumbled as he slid over closer, "Don't reckon a woman ever invited me inta bed with her to make her feel safe zactly, but I suppose if I have to, I can put up with it."

Inara raised up her blankets so that he could slide in beside her. Jayne made sure to keep one blanket between him and her naked body as he eased her head up onto his shoulder tucked her in close and pulled the rest of the blankets over both of them.

"Thank you Jayne" Inara said as she sighed letting the tension ease out of her body. As she drifted off to sleep she heard him whisper, "And you ain't slippin' a bit Inara, not even a little." She slept with a smile on her face.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Mal found the crew having coffee in the dining room. They were quiet, just sitting and holding their cups looking worried. "Still blowin?"

"Yes sir, checked on the cortex and looks like it'll probably blow another day or two at least", Zoe answered. "How ya feelin?"

"Better, the guys in the backside of my head ain't poundin no more. River you got us a search grid to use when we can get to lookin?"

"Examination of the terrain let me eliminate any form of ground transport, it wouldn't be probable for them to land Inara's shuttle where they did and plan to go by ground. They probably switched to either some form of atmospheric flyer or shuttle. I have a grid for each, although the search grid for a shuttle is quite large."

Mal nodded, "Yea, a shuttle kinda opens up the whole moon don't it."

"Only 48.6", River stated. "The search grid for a flyer using the largest fuel capacity for any of sufficient size and power to be useful in these mountains covers only 11.8 of the moon's surface. 17.5 after factoring in standard fuel carrying upgrades to extend range."

Mal considered the new information. "Since we'll be covering that much ground we'll use the ship instead of a shuttle. If need be we can find a place to set her down and use the shuttle, mayhap even use both at the same time if that appears to be an advantage. That'll save us time flying back and forth. Kaylee, anything we need? I want to be ready to head out just as soon as the sky starts clearing."

"No Cap'n, Serenity is shiny, all good to go. She'll suck up the fuel tho if were gonna be staying in atmo."

Mal nods, "I'll be on the bridge then, reach out to Fechin and maybe a few other folks see if any can shed some light on whats going on here. If any ain't gotten rest yet, see the Doc for a smoother, not much more we can do but be rested and ready."

"Mr. Reynolds! I'm surprised to hear from you so quickly, my reports indicated that the delivery had gone smoothly." Fechin Connor was a burly cheerful seeming man. He was some distant cousin of Badger's and had been attempting to rebuild that organization after Badger's untimely death. Mal appreciated working with Fechin over Badger since he seemed much less inclined to try and swindle or mislead Mal before sending him on jobs. Not that very many of the jobs the crew did for Fechin were illegal anymore but at least he was honest up front about which were and which weren't.

Fechin also loved to be called Mr. Connor, made him feel posh. "Far as we know everything went well, Mr. Connor, but we aren't too sure any more. Someone drugged me up and tried to run off with me and appears to have managed to make off with a couple of my crew. You had any word on anyone that might be particularly upset by the deliveries we make here? Outside of local law that is, don't reckon they'd bother with trying to sneak folks off if'n they were on to us." Local laws on Bartell's Moon made it illegal for anyone other than the monopolies to sell tech goods unless they weren't available from the monopolies. Fechin's contact here worked for a tech support company and by slipping in blackmarket tech when they did repairs they could turn a tidy profit and still underbid competitors.

"I haven't heard anything from my person there. You don't think my organization is responsible I hope." Fechin had the grace to appear concerned.

"Naw, we have some indications otherwise, I just wanted to cover all my bases."

"I would be happy to make inquiries and let you know." Fechin said thoughtfully. "Would you like me to throw out a wider inquiry if my people don't have any direct information?"

Mal restrained the impulse to wince. Fechin dealt in favors the same way he dealt in credits, only favors tended to compound. There was no tellin what the man might ask as a return favor. But, to do him fair, he compounded them just as big when he owed you. "I'd consider it a favor if you found out anything useful." Mal worded it carefully. He didn't want to owe for no return.

Mal disconnected after going through the chit-chat that Fechin considered the posh way to conduct business. Man fancied himself a gentleman. Funny thing was he was probably more a gentleman than most of the posh hundan's he was trying to emulate. Hard man, but fair so far. Mal sighed and began working down his list of other contacts. There weren't many that would know much about this since the majority of his work was legal these days, but you never knew when someone would shade into the illegal if profits were high enough. Mal gave a wry grin, who woulda thought he'd be sorry he didn't have enough illegal contacts.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

For the fourth night running, since they had moved down the valley from the flyer, Inara woke Jayne up with her screaming and crying. Ever since the morning she woke up from her fever she hadn't been herself. Her body was healing fairly well and even her leg was getting better, but her mind just seemed to get worse. She didn't do or say much when she was awake just lay there staring at the wall of the snow shelter he had made. She ate some if he held her up and fed her. She wouldn't put on the clothes he had adjusted down to her size, just pushed them away and refused them, preferring to be wrapped up in the blankets. The only thing she had been adamant about was that he hold her when he lay down and stay close enough that she could touch him when she got unsettled during the day.

The few times he had gone out to keep the tunnel down to their shelter clear he had come back to find her sitting up holding the blankets up to her chin shivering and whimpering. Reminded him a little of the way River had been when she first came on Serenity, well without all the crazy talk and readin' and cuttin' people and such, but the look in her eyes was the same.

She asked for pain meds more often than he really thought she should too and they was getting low on them. Jayne sighed. He really hated to push her but he was gonna have to make her talk soon. The storm had cleared up the day before and they were gonna need to get moving eventually. There was no way he could get them out of here if she didn't perk up some. She didn't eat enough to have the energy she needed to stay warm while he towed the toboggan. He'd found out when they moved that it didn't take much for hypothermia to take effect on her even with every blanket they had wrapped around her.

Jayne eased his shoulder out from under her and started making breakfast. It was just the packaged food stuffs but even if it tasted like go se it was good to start the day with a warm meal. He had brought the heater this far but had not really decided if he would be hauling it when they began the long trek. It sure made the small shelter much more cozy than it had the flyer. He woke Inara up and got her propped up so he could feed her. She wouldn't look at him just stared over his shoulder. After he had finished cleaning up the bowl they had used for breakfast he wrapped her good in her blankets and made her sit up and sat right in front of her.

"Inara you and me got to talk" he said. She looked at him for a second then looked away. "Inara!" She looked back at him. "We need to talk about what happened to you." Her face froze in something like a snarl, her eyes focused more than he had seen in days.

"Now its pretty clear that you ain't feeling like talking to me just yet so I'm gonna start, ok?" Jayne watched Inara closely. He thought her expression may have eased up a bit. Good. "When I was fixin' you up after the accident I got a good look at all your cuts and bruises right?" Inara nodded, more of a jerk really but he thought it was a nod. "There was something of a pattern to some of your bruises and tears and between them and some of what you said when you have your nightmares I've got me some idea of what happened."

"No" Inara uttered flatly between gritted teeth.

"Yea, I know something about what happened in your mind while you was being hurt." it was almost all Jayne could do to keep looking her in the eye. This was something a trapper had done for him all those years back, he had never guessed what it cost that old man to help him.

"No, you really can't!"

Inara had been getting more and more distant up until he had said the word 'mind'. She eased up a little but still wasn't believing him.

"Yes I really can. Inara did you know that there was an actual slaver guild?"

The seeming change of topic confused her and lessened her tension, "Wha...no...what does that have to do anything?"

"One of the branches of the slaver guild is a sorta evil companion guild. They 'Train' people to be gorram pleasure slaves." Jayne had to look away for a second. It took all his will to make eye contact with Inara again.

"What does that have..." Understanding flashed through her mind like a windstorm, followed quickly by another thought. Inara flinched away from Jayne her glance darting around the small shelter looking for escape. "How do you know all this", she demanded. She was quivering with fear and the need to run or fight even though there wasn't a tiānshā thing she could do.

Jayne eased away from her, trying to make himself small and giving her room. "I ... I guess you could call me a graduate" he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Inara's body went ridged as she stared at Jayne's face, seeing and finally registering the pain, shame and truth reflected there. Slowly her body drained of some of the tension and she winced as the pain from her injuries let her know she had strained herself. "How long?" She couldn't believe the strong man in front of her was someone who had endured anything as bad or worse than the two days she had been through. Why was he still so strong?

"Six years" Jayne whispered. Damn that old man had been strong. Jayne wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. He'd take all he could though, he owed it to Barley to pass this gift on and he couldn't stand the thought of this beautiful, independent woman breaking herself with her own mind.

"How did it happen?" Inara asked.

"No more right now Inara." He held up his hand to stop her protests, "I promise I'll tell you some of it and answer your questions later, but right now it's about you. I need you to tell me what you felt happened to you, so I can explain what was really going on."

She stumbled a bit mentally at his odd phrasing but this was Jayne, he didn't always say things clearly. Her right hand played with the threads hanging off of her blanket. Her head down eyes not seeing.

"Would you rather I stay here or would you like me to move away and give you more space?" Jayne asked quietly.

She looked up still not seeing anything. Slowly she focused on him. "Would..." her voice cracked, "would you mind holding me?" After the nights of him holding her to make her feel safe while she cried from her nightmares, she really needed to feel him around her if she was going to do this.

He lifted her gently, oh so gently into his lap. She absorbed his heat and felt his compassion as he smoothed her hair. But no pity, he didn't shame or weaken her with pity. Slowly, with a halting voice and many pauses for tears she told him about her two days of hell. "I'm so weak, I can't believe he broke me in so short of a time. Another few days and I would have been running around on all fours licking his feet when he told me to." She raised her head slowly, certain she would see a look of complete disgust at her weakness. Her heart stopped when she looked at him, tears were flowing freely down his face, tears for the pain and terror she had endured and for his own. She touched them wonderingly, "Jayne Cobb shedding tears, that explains the weather then, clearly hell has frozen over."

Inara flinched as their tension escaped in a burst of laughter that caught them both by surprise and jarred her ribs causing pain to spike through her body.

Jayne stroked her hair smiling at her. "Your telling me that was one of the bravest things I've ever been witness to. Thank you for your trust."

Inara just gaped at him. Who in the hell was this man? "Jayne? I've just realized something, you don't have your rim accent anymore.

The smile on his faded to just a slight quirk of his lips. "Six years Inara, I told you I was a graduate. People don't want body servants and pleasure slaves clumping around sounding crass. I've been trained almost as much to be a companion as you have. I even looked it up one time and there is a clause in the Companion Guild bylaws that allows someone trained by the Slavers Guild as a pleasure slave entrance into the Guild. Have to train another couple of years to cover some of the social niceties and counter some of the subservience that gets ingrained but it can be done."

The color drained from Inara's face, "that can't be true they wouldn't condone what was done to you!"

Jayne shrugged, "I think its a kindness really, not many that have been trained that way and found themselves free for one reason or another would be able to find any other sort of work. Gives them some protection, sides I can't imagine that it comes up very often." He purposefully did not explore the corollary with her, Companions could be retrained as pleasure slaves in a much shorter time usually and were highly prized. Inara believed that her companion training had made her strong and in many ways it had, but except for the fact that emotional pain and peer pressure had replaced physical pain and humiliation the training was pretty much the same and equaled unquestioned obedience.

Settling his face into a more serious expression Jayne said, "now it's time for me to tell you what was really going on while 'Jonathan' worked on you."

Inara looked away. Her hand had slipped inside Jayne's shirt needing the comfort of skin to skin contact as she told her story. Now she restlessly began to play with his chest first tracing her fingers around it then placing her hand flat to feel the steady comfort of his heartbeat.

"The first thing to explain is the slapping. Except for the first few times it never really hurt did it?" Jayne asked.

Inara had to think about it since in her mind it had seemed like her head exploded every time 'Jonathan' had hit her. "I'm not totally sure, it seemed fairly bad every time to me."

Jayne nodded, "The first 15 to 30 minutes are pretty critical in the mode he was using. The initial extreme violence, throwing you to the floor as you came in, tying you immediately and then laying out the rules punctuated with more violence and pain. Sometimes without you actually violating his rules would be my guess."

Inara thought again, she shuddered at first then focused clinically reviewing Jayne's description against her own experience. Her face serious but without pain as she considered his description.

She didn't realize it but this was exactly what Jayne wanted her to do. The time she had spent with the 'trainer' had been short enough that if she were just able to understand and stop torturing herself, she would be fine. She needed to view her experience rationally while distancing herself from the terror and emotion. He was doing his best to engage her as an observer of her experience rather than participant. Basically the opposite of what Jonathan had done. Jonathan had done his best to divorce her rational mind and operate solely on emotion and instinct. Jayne watched as she nodded to herself.

"Yes, I think you are right, that feels like what happened."

He smiled at her, very pleased with her strength. "The sole purpose of those actions is to disconnect your mind from your body, to knock it out of place through the abrupt change from what you understand to something you aren't familiar with, to make you feel lost and panicked."

She quickly nodded, "Yes exactly, it was as if I couldn't catch my breath, only in my mind."

Jayne smiled at her, nodding his approval of her quickness. "You said that he kept slapping you as a punishment when you didn't obey?"

Inara nodded, her face flushed with hopeful determination.

"That is the mistake he intended for your rational mind to make. The slap has two purposes. The first is to distract your rational mind, to keep it gasping for breath trying to figure out how to make it stop The second purpose is physical. The jarring of your brain. Its like in a brawl when you get hit in the head too often you get disoriented and confused. This heightens the disconnection of the mind from the physical. There was nothing you could do to keep him from slapping you. There was no right response or right behavior."

Frowning, she considered his explanation, Inara asked "What about brain damage, wouldn't that do permanent damage?"

"Yes and no, if just anyone attempted to do that to another person for hours on end, it would be almost guaranteed, I would think, but that technique used by an expert has very minimal long term effects." Jayne frowned, "I'd guess from your description that Jonathan was at the very least a Master Trainer, if not a Senior Master."

Inara gazed off into space for a time.

Jayne watched her face as she lost her intensity and tears began to fill her eyes.

Clearing her voice, she asked quickly as if to get it all out while she could, "What about my body? Why did I get aroused when he ..." She turned her face to his chest.

Gently, Jayne tilted her chin up so she would look at him, "You couldn't help that either Inara. That was a completely different tactic. He was using an extremely difficult and complex form of acupressure to study your body's responses and teach it to associate various pressure points with verbal queues. The pain he caused was due to his training of your body, pain when it didn't respond as he wished, pleasure when it did. His goal wasn't to break you yet, merely to convince your confused rational mind that you were already broken. Once your body appeared to be under his control, your mind would have been your own worst enemy since you would have actually believed that he had broken you."

Inara sat very still while her brain fully digested Jayne's words. "He already had, Jayne, it already was!"

"NO! You were not broken! It was the equivalent of a very good lie, you just believed it for awhile and now that you know the truth you can let it go. Your mind did not fail you, your body did not betray you! The only weakness was that you didn't know what he was doing. Knowing how it works makes it nearly impossible to accomplish in that way."

Inara's mind and her body were her temple, they were what she believed in and where she found her strength. As Jayne named precisely the fears that had been tearing her apart, she was finally able to understand the lie and let much of the fear go. She collapsed against him holding on as tightly as she could, weeping as if her heart would break, only it wasn't breaking, it was being washed clean so that it could knit and mend.

Jayne held Inara close until her crying stopped. She pulled his head down, placed a feather soft kiss at the corner of his jaw and whispered, "Thank you" and fell asleep. He waited awhile to make sure she was well asleep then tried to lay her down. She refused to let go, holding on to his shirt so hard he was afraid it would wake her if he made her let go. He shifted her around so that she was partially on top of him with her head on his chest. He moved his arm around to hold her and froze as his hand touched the skin of her back, then relaxing he covered them with the blankets and went to sleep stroking her silky soft back.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Jayne woke feeling very rested. The weight of Inara on his chest felt good and he lay there a few minutes simply enjoying the rested feeling. He opened his eyes to see a pair of lovely brown eyes looking at him. Inara had her chin propped up on her hands. "Seems you slept through the night without any a them nightmares." Jayne smiled up at her.

Blink...Blink. Nothing.

"Er, um, everything ok Inara?"

Blink...Blink.

"Your hand." Inara said. Blink...Blink.

Jayne tried to think very hard, his hand what...? He frowned at her.

"Its on my butt." Blink...Blink.

"Shén shèng de gaōwán". Jayne jerked his hand straight up into the air almost pulling the blankets off her. "Uh ... Sorry?" Blink...Blink.

Jayne carefully place his hand on her mid-back and gently rolled her off of him onto her back, making gorram sure to keep the blankets covering her. He stood up straight without thinking and smacked his head against the icy roof. The impact stunned him and he dropped back to his knees. "Ooof."

What in the ruttin' hell was wrong with Inara? Jayne panicked, thinking she was having some sort of convulsion and reached for her. He stopped when he realized what the problem was. She was trying to gorram giggle at him, giggling hurt her ribs so she would gasp and try and hold her breath while cussing from the pain. Then she would giggle again starting the whole thing over. He frowned at her and started grumping, "gorram women always gotta mess with a man afore he's awake in the morning, just like ruttin' Kaylee."

Jayne stumped over to start breakfast remembering to keep his head ducked this time. He glanced over at Inara as she finally got herself settled down. "Sorry Inara, about the hand I mean."

Inara started taking slow even breaths between her words, "Don't...you...dare...get. ..me...started...again Jayne Cobb!" She settled down again, "besides it felt kind of nice."

Jayne spilled the hot food mash on his hand, "Ouch, Gorramit." He knelt there shaking his hand and blowing on it which promptly sent Inara right back into her cycle of giggle, snort, gasp, curse, giggle ...

Inara finally got herself under control, "Oh God, except for the fact I think my ribs are probably sticking straight out of my chest now, that felt absolutely wonderful. I don't think I've laughed like that in months."

"Speakin' of ribs why'nt you eat this up and see about getting some meat back on em?" Jayne handed her her very own bowl of food mash for the first time since the accident.

Inara shifted herself up to a sitting position with a few winces and curses and accepted the bowl with both hands and a small bow, a Companion's formal acceptance of a gift. "Thank you, Jayne." Her bow would have been deeper if her ribs allowed as she was thanking him for much more than the food. She noted that Jayne almost started to bow in formal response but turned it into a quick nod instead.

"Bout time" he grumped.

She covered up a small quick smile by taking a bite of her food. "Jayne I think I would like to get dressed today."

He looked up from his food with just the tiniest of smiles on his face, "Don't think I'm gonna stop ya, they're right over there where ya threw em a couple of days ago."

She felt the heat in her face as she blushed, "Yes, well the reason I am mentioning it to you is that I think I would like to bathe first and I was wondering if you would heat some water for me."

Jayne made a face at her, "Aw, first day feeling spunky and already ya wanna be givin' me chores. I'll heat it up for ya but don't think I'm gonna go outside and sit in the cold just so you can wash up a bit." Inside Jayne was doing a jig, she was feeling better!

"Well, you could join me." Inara said as she took another bite.

The inside Jayne that was dancing a jig stumbled over his own feet and stopped. "What are you talkin' bout Inara?" he leered.

"Jayne, you told me very clearly yesterday that we have had much the same training. Please don't insult me today by pretending to misunderstand me." Inara looked Jayne square in the eye and refused to look away. "Thanks to you I am feeling much better. To continue healing and getting better I need to begin following the rituals that are a part of my life, that are a part of being healthy and being me. I am inviting you to participate in that bathing ritual for two reasons. "

"One is that I have a sneaking suspicion that with my lack of mobility due to my bandages and my ribs I will need your assistance and the fact that the person that can help me is familiar with bathing as a ritual fills me with great joy. Secondly and most importantly I invited you because I would be honored."

Jayne stared at Inara, his face set in a completely expressionless mask though his eyes glittered with fury. He raged inside, who was this bitch to ask this of him? Hadn't he done enough for her? Didn't she understand that was something he had locked away many years ago? This was not who he was anymore, he wasn't some scared, tortured kid who had to do what he was told. He wasn't... No he wasn't, he thought with wonder. The wall he had built had been partially disassembled in the long day with Inara. He could see over the edge a little bit and began to understand that maybe he had gotten far enough away from the tortured kid that he didn't need to hide anymore. He heard Barley then, like a whisper floating over the lowest edge of the wall. "Kid you won't ever be ok until you can tell your story again to someone else, someone you trust and who has a place in your heart. You told me once and that'll start the healing, but it won't ever finish if you can't do that thing again."

Inara recognized the expression on Jayne's face. It was the face of Protector in a killing rage. She had never seen it before, had only heard it described in whispers, but there was nothing else it could be. Not many were aware that a very small percentage of Companions were trained beyond the emotional, sexual and social to be bodyguards as well as regular Companions. These were also the people that visited wayward clients who had mistreated their contracted Companions to give lessons in proper behavior. The Companions so chosen underwent intense physical training that she knew almost nothing about. It was said that when these Protectors lost a client to violence they could go into a killing rage and wreak suicidal devastation on those who had caused the injury. Usually going to their own death as well. She didn't fear for herself, Jayne could not bring harm to her. She knew that with her entire being. She feared greatly for Jayne himself. With an effort of will she maintained a calm center and waited for a clue as to how to help him.

Inara relaxed as she watched his expression soften.

Jayne made a choice, the pressure inside his mind had to be relieved, if it could begin his healing, he would trust Inara. He began to talk.

"I've always implied to everyone that I left home when I was 14 or so. This is not so. I went to the Companion Guild when I was six." He held up his hand at her slight change of expression. I know that you believe nine to be the youngest age one can be accepted. They make exceptions when the child is believed to be one who can be a Protector. The training I received until I was 11 was not significantly different from your own, except as it needed due to gender differences. From the time I turned 11 until I was 14, I was trained to be a Protector. This is an extended survival and combat course taken while still having to maintain our Companion skills. It is dangerous and very rigorous with the exception that it wasn't intended to train us in survival for ourselves except as need be in order to preserve the life of our client. At first we were put in situations where we needed to survive by ourselves alone. Then as we succeed in those tests we were put in similar situations with another person that we had to keep alive, the person they sent with us was never allowed or able to contribute in any significant way.

"Success was based on whether our client survived, our survival was always considered secondary. Those who died while keeping their client alive graduated posthumously. Our 'clients' during training were adults. The instructors determined our success based on the condition of the client. However, if the Protector in training died, a shuttle would come in and pick up the client. Fatalities among the Protectors ran around 60.

"When I was 14, I was on a transport being taken to my next testing planet. It would have been my final test. The ship was attacked by slavers posing as pirates. I killed three of them when they tried to take my client out of our room. I thought it was part of the test, hell for all I know it was, and I failed.

"The first trainer to attempt training me was an idiot. He had been told what I had done on the transport but he didn't believe me capable, I hadn't had my growth spurt yet and looked fairly unimposing. I killed him. They turned to the old tried and true methods of breaking a slave. Psychotropic drugs and pain." Jayne went on to explain just what those methods meant.

"They broke me the first time when I was 15. They broke me again at 15 and a half, again at 16 and again at 16 and a half. That was the last time. I had learned my lesson, I had learned patience. Since it had taken so many times for them to finally break me they kept me a long time testing me, always testing, to see if I really was broken. In many ways the testing was worse than the breaking. There is a pattern to breaking someone, there is a goal and this in and of itself creates a structure. Testing has no such structure, random violence and humiliation are used in an attempt to see if you were truly broken. To test for an inappropriate reaction. They forced me to watch while the broke children and young women. The don't train adults, just break them for labor. This is when I learned about the modes used on you.

"I was given to Ezaria, one of the few female high ranking slave guild members. She ... stretched my patience." He described in some detail Shyra's appetites and proclivities. When I was 20 years old they finally sold me. Ezaria flew me here to Bartlett's Moon to meet up with my new owner. She had the temerity to cry and hug me when the owner arrived. She almost died, but I waited.

The owner took me on his shuttle and headed for Randolf City to his ship. I was to be an anniversary gift for his wife. I killed him, his two guards and the pilot, then crashed the shuttle in the plains and hid the bodies. I made it look like an accident and that we had all walked away from it to be lost in the wilderness. The trapper I mentioned found me a couple of days later.

After a couple of years I had changed enough and saved up enough money to catch a transport to Persephone. As far as I know the slavers never knew my real name. They never wanted to know. So, I went back to being Jayne Cobb, rude crude farm boy turned merc, as if none of my life had existed since I was 5 years old. Jayne is the exact opposite of what I spent 14 years of my life being trained to be, rude, insensitive, coarse and generally unpleasant. The only part of that training I have retained is my proclivity for survival and skills at violence.

Jayne Cobb, Companion and Protector, the rude crude farm boy turned merc's eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.

Inara collapsed in on herself. It had taken all of her strength to remain still and calm, to not reach out, not gasp or weep for him for fear of interrupting the confession. Her body shook with her sobs, the pain of her ribs nothing compared to the pain in her heart for Jayne. She half crawled and half dragged herself over to him. Inara tugged Jayne's arm over her and wrapped him around her like a favorite blanket and held on for dear life as she wept. At times she hated him for telling her of his life, not believing she had the strength to bear the knowledge and be whole. Other times she loved him for his trust and the strength that had allowed him to help her despite the cost to him.

Jayne woke up to find himself holding a naked, sniffling, shivering woman seemingly attached to him with glue. "Here now whats this about Inara?" He reached out and dragged a couple of the blankets over her tucking them tightly around her. "You're gonna freeze to death."

Inara indelicately wiped her face on Jayne's shirt, "Jayne Cobb, yesterday you came into my mind, today you came into my heart and right now 'in this moment' I want you to come into my body."

"Inara I..."

"'In this moment' Jayne, 'IN THIS MOMENT" she said fiercely.

Jayne stopped to consider. His hand stroked her hair, wet with tears, away from her cheeks. 'In this moment" was a Companion's ritual request that whatever happened at that time be considered outside of anything past or future. It would take place outside of consideration for other commitments and without being considered a commitment for anything in the future. It was about now, in this moment, it was a request for healing, regardless of the method needed. "I think you may have to loosen your grip some in order for me to get my clothes off", he smiled, and placed a gentle kiss on her lips, leaning away before she could lean in.

"You damn well better hurry!" she growled at him.

He damn well did.

As she lifted the blanket for him to join her, he paused and looked at her slowly from head to toe and did something she had never before experienced herself. She had learned it at school, it is one of the last techniques they taught. It was an extremely difficult technique to learn after years of learning to maintain control and it wasn't something one got a chance to use very often because it was about honesty and trust. A Companion was rarely able to use it fully although the ability to use it somewhat selectively was, after all, what made a Companion.

Jayne dropped his shields, his blocks with no reservations or holding back. He let her see everything he felt when he looked at her. His awe of her beauty and his desire for her. His pleasure that she desired him and the hunger that looking at her body made him feel. And greatest of all he let her see his love. The combination was so powerful it was an almost physical force pressing against her body. For the first time since Inara was 15 years old, she blushed in a sexual situation. She reached up and tangled her fingers in the hair on the back of his head and pulled him down to her.

To an outsider looking in it wouldn't have seemed to be sexy. There was clumsiness due to Inara's injuries and they moved slowly sometimes haltingly. But between them was a maelstrom. In opening himself completely to Inara and offering her that trust, Jayne allowed Inara for the first time in her life to open herself to another and hold nothing back. They danced the Companion's Ritual of Healing and in being completely open to one another they created something even greater.

Caressed pressure points opened them to each other psychologically and emotionally, others opened them physically, kissed pressure points opened them to ecstasy, still others started the fire. As Jayne penetrated Inara completely, union was achieved, all of the openings they had created merged and together they burned. They burned each other with every stroke, the fire burned away hurts in their minds and hearts that they hadn't even given name to yet. With each penetration Inara lost herself, feeling as if Jayne's entire body merged into hers. Jayne felt lovingly enclosed, completely enfolded in the heat of Inara's body.

They gifted each other with forgiveness and acceptance. They gifted each other with love and together they saw the face of God and He burned away their sins.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Mal's eyes darted from the snow blown mountainous terrain to the data screen and back as he carefully maneuvered Serenity around the ragged cliffs. The storm had ended two days ago but there hadn't been enough light left in the day to start looking. They had begun their search yesterday with no luck and spent the night parked in one of the valleys wide enough to hold Serenity. They had used only the ship for the search to that point, but Mal had decided that they would use the shuttle as well today. It didn't help much that they had no gorram idea what they were even trying to find. They were scanning for ruttin anything they could think of, magnetics, heat whatever. River had even written up a program that looked for things the wrong gorram shape. Something about man made angles as opposed to natural shapes.

Today had been a bust so far, the magnetic sensors had lit up once earlier and they spotted the desicated corpse of an old flyer. No telling how long it had been there.

"Sir?" Zoe's voice crackled over the com. She and River were in shuttle two following the modified search grid River and run up the night before to accommodate using the 2nd vessel.

"I'm here, whatcha got?" Mal responded.

We've got three flyers in grid 243,1641. River says they are flying a search pattern. She says its not as efficient as her's but that it looks like they have a narrower grid like they know where something should be and its dead on our search grid."

"Have they seen you yet Zoe?" Mal was doing some quick thinking.

"Pretty sure sir, wasn't trying to hide or anything."

"Go ahead and fly on out then like you're just passing through, I'll move over above them, should be able to watch them with Serenity's sensors without them seeing her. You come pick up at my grid. River you get everything marked down so we don't miss anything and know where to start back up if this don't pan out. May be nothin to do with us, storm we just had could be any number of folks lost."

Mal had been keeping Serenity out of range of the flyers for a couple of hours now. He had a feeling they were connected to Jayne and Inara's disappearance, didn't make sense for two groups of people to be searching for something on the same path out here in nowhere land. Wasn't as if it were a highly traveled road or something. Mal noticed two of the flyers speed up and head towards the one at the far left. "May have something here Zoe got two of em headin towards the third at speed and he's landing."

Mal slid Serenity down closer hoping that with the excitement down below they wouldn't notice him. "There's a couple of folks diggin at something with shovels." The two other flyers landed and another half a dozen people jumped out and floundered over to a snow drift to start digging away with a couple of supervisor types waving and gesturing around.

"I'm gonna go in closer Zoe they've found something down there."

"Be careful sir, if they have anything to do with this they ain't been the friendliest bunch."

"I'm always careful," Mal said with hurt in his voice. "I'll just make like I'm dropping in to see if they need any help."

Zoe looked over at River. Her face was flushed and her breathing was speeding up into a pant. Zoe realized then the River was landing the shuttle. "River what's up girl what are you doing?"

River shook her head trying to think. "Ha...Have to land, can't fly, lăo tiān, can't fly right ... now." River felt the shuttle settle and quickly powered down. Her head had flopped back as she panted, gasping and making little noises in the back of her throat. Her clawed hands found the armrests on the chair and and the knuckles turned white with the strength of her grip.

"Are you..." It had been awhile for Zoe, but she recognized what she was seeing, a woman in the throws of an orgasm. Correction one HELL of an orgasm. She was starting to get a might jealous, when River's body extended back curved like a bow straining for release.

"Jaaaayyyyynnnneee", River gasped as her body quivered even more tautly then collapsed eyes rolled back in her head. She sprawled bonelessly in the chair panting and giggling.

Eeww, thought Zoe, that was ... disturbing.

River tried to move and failed, she gasped and giggled again.

"Um, you ok River?" Zoe asked.

"I saw Him!" River finally managed to gasp out.

"Jayne?"

"God. I saw him he's real!" River shivered and giggled again.

Mal flew Serenity in closer and tried to com the folks down in the snow. Everyone stopped working and watched the ship glide down. Suddenly at a guesture from one of the supervisors they all clambered back to their flyers and took off. "Son of a ... Zoe I need you to get that shuttle up her right now, theres no room for Serenity down there and those bastards just took off as soon as I hailed them."

"Yes, sir, we'll be a few minutes got a little problem here, had to land."

"Whats the problem?"

"You don't really want to know sir."

"Gorram it, Zoe I said get over here, now you either tell me why you can't or get moving."

"River had a ... fit and collapsed sir, says she saw God." Zoe deadpanned.

"She what? She hasn't had a daytime fit in months. Gorram it Zoe, spit it out, you wouldn't be stopped if that was all."

Zoe flinched, "She was driving when it happened sir, she got us landed before she ca, ah collapsed. May have mentioned Jayne's name in connection to seein' god." 

Mal blinked like he'd been hit between the eyes with a hammer. "Uh, Jayne is god huh?"

"Seems like sir."

"As unsettling as that idea is, it does set surprisingly well with the way the verse seems to be run, it'd sure explain some things."

"Yes it would sir, I'll be along in a minute I just need to get River settled."

"Hurry it up, I think I can see the corner of a flyer where they dug out the snow."

Zoe helped River up and walked her to the couch. "River did you say Jayne was god hun?"

River flopped onto the couch still giggling. She rolled to her back and gave Zoe a 'don't be stupid look'. "Saw Inara and Jayne," she frowned, "Jayne's not Jayne anymore, he is more Jayne,they are fine." A huge, almost drunk looking grin was plastered on her face, "very very fine, they took me to see God. His face was very bright, still see spots." She then curled up and went to sleep still giggling.

That was more than disturbing, it was just plain wrong. Jayne? Inara must've gone crazy or something. Though if what River got was just the overflow then ... maybe she'd ... aw hell no! Zoe settled into the pilot chair and powered up the shuttle, "Lifting off now Sir, be right there."

"She do any clarifyin for ya?"

"Yes sir turns out she saw Jayne and Inara and they're doing fine, didn't really get where the god stuff fit in." Zoe didn't like lying to the Captain but she'd be damned if she was going to explain what she'd seen to him.

"Jayne ain't god then?" Mal looked out the forward screen thinking then clicked on the com, "Have to admit I'm a might disappointed. Made more sense than most things. Think I'll save that idea up though, be useful for blaming Jayne when everything goes to hell like it tends to."

"Good idea sir," Zoe grinned. "Coming up behind you now."

"Hook up here with me and pick up the Doc and Kaylee, they've got some shovels and such and can come down and do the digging, I want you armed and up in case we get company."

"Yes sir, hook up in 30 seconds."

Kaylee and Simon clumped into the shuttle all bundled up, Kaylee carrying two shovels and Simon his medical bag. Simon rushed over to River, "Mal said she had a fit, is she ok?" He said as he knelt next to River and listened to her heart with his stethoscope.

"Pretty sure she's fine, she went to sleep smiling and happy." Zoe said as she lifted the shuttle off. "Said she saw Jayne and Inara and they were fine, pretty much made sense, not all confusing like she usually is after takin a bad spell.

Simon patted Rivers cheek, "Mei Mei, you ok?"

River's eyes opened slowly. She stretched out, arms over her head and yawned. Seeing Simon she threw her arms around him and hugged him tight "Simon I saw God, his face was very bright. Yes, Inara and Jayne are fine." She rolled her eyes back and gave him the don't-be-stupid look, "Don't be a boob, of course I don't mean dead, I wouldn't have said fine if I meant dead." She patted him on the cheek and yawned, "I'm just tired, go dig." And curling back up and closed her eyes the huge grin back on her face.

Simon stammered a little embarrassed, "Bright lights, seeing god, just sounded like stories people that die and are revived tell."

Zoe grinned, "Hey you did better than me, first time she said it, I thought she said she saw god and he was Jayne."

Simon stood up, "As horrific as that sounds, it makes a certain amount of sense considering..."

"Yea same thing Mal said", Zoe chuckled "Said he was gonna save it and use it when things went all to hell so he could blame Jayne."

"I like that, it has a sort of cosmic justice ring to it." Simon smirked.

"You guys are being mean, poor Inara and Jayne are lost out there and here you go makin fun." Kaylee said trying very hard not to laugh.

"Well River said they was fine and she's pretty much never wrong about that stuff so I guess we kinda stopped worrying so much." Zoe said seriously.

"Yup, I'm a genious, go dig." Rivers voice was muffled by her arms.

Zoe snorted. "Here we go."

Zoe hopped out of the shuttle and sank into the snow almost up to her hips. She plowed a path over to the area packed down by the previous diggers and squatted down to look at the exposed edge of the flyer. "Looks like it might be upside down", she said into the com. "I'm going to have them keep digging here, might be able to get under the front and see in the viewt screen." She waved Kaylee and Simon over and pointed. Kaylee recognized immediately what Zoe wanted and dug in with Simon helping.

Kaylee's head popped out of the hole she and Simon had dug and she waved Zoe over, "Smashed flatter'n a pancake Zoe, If they're ok they ain't here. Might wanna look it over though it looks odd to me. I know this model and it'd take more than a crash to smash one like this."

Zoe called Mal on the com, "going under sir, Kaylee thinks something looks odd, says its smashed flat but shouldn't be."

"I got my eyes peeled, I'll yell if anyone comes", Mal replied.

Zoe slid down into the hole. Kaylee hadn't exaggerated much saying it was flat. Zoe pulled out a flashlight so she could see better. After looking at the frame closely Zoe realized what was odd about it. "Captain, this thing didn't get flat crashing, someone blew the guĭ out of it. Looks like after it crashed."

"Gorram it." Mal slammed his hand into the armrest of his chair. "Alright get back up here. We're about to lose our light anyway. If this was our folk they didn't get far on foot. I think I have a place spotted down the valley a couple of miles I can set Serenity down in. Lets get down there while there is light enough to land in case its a tight fit."


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Jayne wasn't sure how long they'd been lying there. They hadn't quite passed out but they hadn't felt the need to move either. They just laid there, sometimes one would snuggle up a bit or kiss the other but mostly they just lay there in a stupor. Jayne kinda thought it felt like the best drunk he'd ever tied on, just quieter. A low rumble almost felt more than heard brought him around a little. He grinned as he thought about it 'the earth moved'.

Inara nuzzled Jayne's chest and then gently bit him, "was it just me or did the earth move?"

Jayne frowned, thought was not coming easily, an idea was dancing around just out of comprehension. He propped himself up on one elbow. Finally gears shifted and the thought made itself known. "Huài le!" He slipped his arm out from under Inara, who frowned at him, unhappy at being let go. "Transport! It was a transport." He started grabbing his clothes.

Stamping his feet into his boots Jayne grabbed the sniper rifle. He glanced over and saw Inara's worried look. "Don't worry, I'm not planning on shooting anyone. I need the scope to see better. I'll be right back", he said and scooted out the tunnel. He lifted the blanket he had gotten wet and then frozen hard as a board to use as a cover for the opening. Dark out. He thought he could see some lights down the valley but he wasn't really sure. He was still getting little sparks in his vision from time to time from earlier. His mind drifted back, Lăo tiān yĕ that had been the literal representation of mind blowing! Shaking his head he brought his mind back to the present.

Jayne had dug their entrance next to an outcropping of rock so that he would be able to get out and move around without leaving foot prints. He duck walked to the end of the rocks and laid out prone. Flipping on the night vision switch on the scope he looked down the valley. They may have gotten very, very lucky, it was definitely a firefly. He saw a person moving around and dialed up the magnification. Zhè zhēn shì ge kuàilè de jìnzhăn, it was Zoe out putting up an alarm perimeter. He jumped up and started running back to the tunnel. By the time he got to the entry he was walking slowly, his mind in turmoil. He sat down to think. Finally he got his head sorted out and crawled down into the shelter.

He stood up and looked at Inara. He was stunned. She was sitting up wearing the shirt he had taken in for her, the flannel panties he had sewn from the dead pilots shirt and had the pants he fixed for her on one leg. She was glorious! He smiled as she looked up questioningly. He looked at her and let his face display the wonder she made him feel.

Inara flushed when she saw the look on Jayne's face, "Stop looking at me like that!" she teased. "You're going to make me get my beautiful new panties all wet." She ran her fingers down between her legs.

"Urg, I mean uh Serenity", he said pointing and trying to adjust himself without being too obvious.

Inara stopped teasing, "Really? Thats wonderful! come help me get these pants on, I can't quite bend far enough to get my hurt leg in."

Jayne knelt down and slid the pants up her legs. "They haven't seen us yet, they were just setting down for the night. I saw Zoe setting up perimeter alarms", he said somberly.

Inara touched his face, "You look upset, whats wrong?"

"For them we've only been gone a few days Inara. I don't know how you feel, but for me its been a lifetime. I'm not the same person that walked out of Serenity to go to a whorehouse a week ago. If we or I go back like this it will scare them. Especially Mal and we both know what happens when he gets scared. He'll throw me out. This has become my family the last few years and I don't want to go yet."

"I understand what you mean", she said. "I'm not willing to ignore the way I've felt or live my life as if what we created today didn't happen. What I found today in feeling alive and joyful is part of what I was missing when I came to the Rim. It's not specifically about us, although I must admit to hopes in that area, it's about finding a piece of myself today and finding that piece has made me even more determined to find the rest. I had decided it was time to head back into the core for good but these people are my family too and I would rather not leave yet either.

"The only thing I can think of to do is try and pretend, not forever, but long enough to let them see the change over time. Allow them time to adjust." Jayne grinned at her "with maybe just a little sneaking around, just to see what comes of your hopes you understand."

Inara sighed, "I really hate to hide what I'm feeling since at the moment I am happier and feel more free than at any other time in my life as an adult, but I can't see any other way that wouldn't result in an explosion that left us off the ship." She cupped his face in her hand and kissed him firmly, "and yes, I believe this sneaking around you spoke of will be mandatory."

"Now that we got that settled I'm gonna pack us up and we'll slide down there and scare the guĭ out of em", he said with a mischievous grin.

Inara grinned getting into the playful spirit immediately, "How are we going to do that?"

"Those sensors Zoe put up are go se, I been after Mal to spring for some new ones for months. And now I'm gonna show him why." Jayne grabbed some of the blankets and spread them across the toboggan. I need ya ta lay on the boggan while I load up, its the only way everything fits." He scooped her up and gently set her on the toboggan, tucking a folded blanket under her head for a pillow."

"Wouldn't it be easier to load outside?" She asked looking doubtfully at the entrance.

Jayne took special care wrapping her feet since she didn't have shoes. "Naw too much work to haul everything out, sides you'd have to lay out there in the cold while I packed if'n we did it like that."

Inara stifled a grin at how easily he shifted back into 'slightly dumb good ole boy' Jayne Cobb.

Two hours later Inara sputtered at the face full of snow she got when Jayne finally pulled the toboggan out of the tunnel, "Easier?" she smirked.

He had the grace to look embarrassed, "Dunno what happened, fit fine going in." He grinned suddenly, "you musta got fat!"

"Jayne Cobb you are damn lucky I'm wrapped up so tight I can't move or I'd throw snow down your collar and see how you grin", she hissed.

He stuck his tongue out at her and headed down valley.

Mal sat in the bridge looking out at the mountains. He had been certain they'd find Inara today, especially after River said she and Jayne were fine. Might be fine, but she was still lost. He'd ruttin throw bèn tiānshēng Jayne out the airlock for sure if he got her hurt in any way. The sudden pounding on the airlock startled him nearly causing him to fall out of his seat. Then a voice screamed in the com "Who in the Hell said you could park in my front yard?" and more pounding.

"ZOE we got company, I thought you put out a security screen", Mal yelled into the com.

"I did sir", Zoe answered groggily.

"Well it didn't work, someone is pounding on the air lock. Says we're parked in his yard, which has me some puzzled." Pistol in hand, Mal ran through the ship toward the airlock.

Kaylee beat him to the lock and squealed, "JAYNE ITS JAYNE, I don't see Inara, wait he went back out, oh ain't that sweet he's carryin her." Kaylee ran over and punched the button to open the door.

"KAYLEE! Gorram it don't you ever open that door without I say so! I don't care if its your own mother outside!" Mal ran up and pointed his gun at the door as it opened.

Kaylee's excitement couldn't be dampened much but she threw Mal a "sorry Cap'n" over her shoulder.

Zoe and River arrived at the same time, Zoe pointing her gun same as Mal and River jumping up and down and clapping.

The door swung wide and Jayne jumped in with a loud, "Boo" and started laughing his head off while Inara, of all people, joined in.

Simon finally arrived carrying his doctors bag.

Kaylee and River both tried to hug Jayne and Inara at the same time and almost tipped them over.

Simon started in with "are you ok, are you hurt anywhere", when any idiot could tell that people don't laugh like that when they're critically injured.

Mal wanted to go grab Inara from Jayne but with all the noise and attempted hugging going on he figured he'd just look like a fool. "QUIET! Settle down folks, lets get Inara and Jayne up to the infirmary so the doc can check em over. Kaylee get the engine fired up I want off this ice-ball. Zoe grab up those worthless sensors. Lets move people." Mal was hoping to get Inara from Jayne so he could carry her up, but that didn't happen.

"On my way Cap'n", Kaylee called.

Jayne headed for the infirmary still carrying Inara.

"Zoe, do me a favor and drag that 'boggan in that's parked outside the door wouldja? Theres a bunch a stuff in there I wanna keep. I'm gonna make some survival packs to put in the shuttles for if anyone ever goes down. Hey doc you gotta see what I did, I fixed Inara up good, she was hurt pretty bad."

Mal and Zoe just stood there watching Jayne go. They looked at each other and laughed "drop that man upside down in the mountains with a full on blizzard blowing, leave him for a week and I'll be damned if he don't find us and walk in looking healthier than he started." Mal said.

Inside Mal ached to take Inara in his arms and make everything right between them. Before he had found out she was missing, he had resolved that they needed a clean break. Things were just getting worse and he didn't have any idea how to get where he wanted to go. Probably best that he wasn't able to get to her, he'd have said things or made promises he couldn't deliver on. Much as he wanted there to be a them, he just couldn't see his way past her having sex with people for money, even if it somehow wasn't just about sex.

Zoe smiled, "they both looked good didn't they."

"Get that stuff in, I'll set a course for Persephone, lets get out of here", Mal said, finally remembering to holster his gun.

"Yes Sir."


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Jayne put Inara down on the infirmary table and started pulling the blankets off. Simon stood there trying to start his exam.

Jayne tossed the blankets on the floor and took Inara's chin in his hand turning her head so the light showed the gash near her temple.

"Jayne, I can do my own exam thank you just step...", Simon sputtered.

"Here's her head wound, had to stitch it up some, sucker bled a lot." Jayne started unbuttoning Inara's shirt.

"Jayne, move so I...you gave her stitches?" Simon went around the table to examine Inara's head. "You did really well with those, I know surgeons that can't do that fine of a stitch."

"Lean up Inara", Jayne pulled Inara's shirt off exposing her breasts and the wrap for her injured ribs as well as a couple of other locations he had needed to stitch up, "an here I had to do more stitches, they wasn't too bad just a little on the deep side and..."

"JAYNE!" Simon exasperated, finally yelled.

"Yea doc?"

Simon attempted to grab Inara's shirt as Jayne tossed it towards the counter, "I can do my own exam thank you."

Inara, who had been watching Jayne with a smile broke in, "Simon, Jayne worked very hard to keep me healthy and is justifiably proud of the work he did, I'm quite happy letting him show it off to you."

Simon stuttered, "Oh, ok", he was completely stumped, in his experience Inara was quite modest and would usually stay fairly covered up during examinations except as needed. Yet here she sat smiling as Jayne, of all people, casually stripped her clothes off.

"Anyway, she has a few broken ribs, three that I'm sure of," he said, as he cupped one breast and lifted it up to point at the bruised ribs below , "and two more that I think are only cracked a bit."

Jayne reached down and undid Inara's pants, "raise your butt up for me a bit there Inara." He gently pulled the pants off and pointed to the bandage at the top of her thigh and started removing it, "This here is the one that worries me doc, both for healing proper and that you might have to fix the scar for her. Tiānshā piece of metal went all the way through her leg and pinned it to a seat." He finished removing the bandage, "roll over on your side there so doc can see both sides Inara."

At the description of this very serious wound Simon moved around the table and Jayne finally moved out of the way and let him examine it.

"We didn't have any antibiotics or antiseptic so I had to use whiskey to keep it clean", Jayne explained.

"You what? This is healing very nicely Jayne you did an excellent job."

"She scared me bad the second night, came down with a pretty bad fever. That there wound was oozing puss and smelled real bad too, so I shot her up with the pain stuff we had... oh here it is by the way thought you might want to know what she's been taking ... anyway I shot her up good and squeezed all the puss I could out and found a little chunk of padding in it, pulled that out, then doused it good in whiskey. Made sure it got all the way in too. Thats why it isn't closed up very nice on the outside, I didn't want to sew it up and have it heal over infection.

Mal walked to the doorway of the infirmary and stopped. He saw Inara lying on the table with nothing but panties on, smiling as Jayne and the Doc looked at her wounds. He was stunned by her beauty, he had never seen her naked or even close before. About all the further they had gone when things were at their best was to make out a little. He frowned as he realized she wasn't simply smiling as the two men talked, she was smiling at Jayne in particular. A soft happy smile that Mal had never seen before.

"What do we have here, show and tell?" Mal said, he had meant it as a joke but as he heard the words come out he realized it sounded like he was criticizing Inara, again. He tried to smile through it but he knew it was too late.

As soon as she heard Mal, Inara's smile faltered and she pulled a blanket up covering herself from the waist up.

Inside Mal winced as he saw her cover herself. She didn't care if Jayne saw her half naked but she covered herself from him? That just didn't make any kind of sense that Mal wanted to understand. He may have given up on an 'us' with her but that didn't make seeing her look at Jayne that way any easier.

Simon glanced up briefly, "Somewhat, Jayne did a rather amazing job of surgery on Inara, especially given the circumstances. Inara is healing faster than I would have expected as well, most of her stitches are ready to come out. Only a couple of these will scar very much and I can do some simple cosmetic surgeries to fix them once they heal completely."

Jayne grinned at Inara, "Guess you was lucky I was along, huh" Noticing her discomfort now that Mal was present he winked at her. "Well, holler when you want to see me Doc, though I'm healthy as a horse. I better go give Mal the rundown of what happened."

Mal saw Inara touch Jayne's hand briefly as she smiled at him, a beautiful smile, the one Mal had always wanted her to smile at him.

Jayne started out the door but stopped as though he didn't want to be rude by brushing past Mal. Mal didn't really have a choice but to step back, then as Jayne moved out the door he closed it behind him and continued standing in front of it. "So you wanna talk in the dining room? Most like lil River, Kaylee and Zoe will be waiting there to hear what happened. We'll maybe not River, she likely knows already."

Mal knew he'd been maneuvered out of the room but he wasn't quite sure why, or if it had happened on purpose. He started to get mad but he couldn't really hold on to it since he wasn't sure what had happened or if he really wanted to be in the room anyway. Not to mention Jayne was standing there grinning at him big as day. A mite offputtin he had to say. Jayne only grinned like that about a few things, none of which should be coming to mind looking at Mal. Then the reason became clear.

"Didja see them guns I got off those hun dan's that took us Mal? That there sniper rifle is a beauty. Damn thing is an Alliance special ops weapon. I ain't gonna sell it but it'd go for an easy 5,000 plat."

Chuckling as the world snapped into place for him, Mal slapped Jayne on the shoulder, "I ain't seen it yet Jayne, you can show me later. Lets go see Kaylee and Zoe and hear your story and River too, we got a little story of our own and River can't read you, Inara or me right now."

When Jayne walked into the dining room the first thing he saw was a plate of gorram REAL food set at his place. In seats on either side of his, River and Kaylee sat grinning from ear to ear. "Real food? For me?" He hurried over and scooped up a giggling girl in each arm and squeezed em. "You have some for Inara too? We've been eating that go se Alliance food stuff for a week and it tasted just like Simon's cooking. You know, Simon's cooking tastes like...

"crotch" The two girls laughed as they said it in unison with him.

"Yes, now tell us about seeing God", River said, nearly bouncing in her seat.

Jayne was a bit concerned with that request but Mal accidentally saved him from the question. "River let the man eat a bit and tell us his story, you can ask him about god later."

Jayne glanced gratefully at Mal, he hoped he could get Inara to handle the god question, he had a sneaking suspicion where that led. He tucked into the food groaning with pleasure, "aaah, this is mighty fine ladies, thank you!"

Kaylee grinned with pleasure and some astonishment, she'd never heard Jayne say thank you that pretty before. Usually it was being a bit less rude for a minute or two and some grunting. "Ain't nothin too good for our hero", she said rubbing his back.

Jayne started the story. "Turned out we was took by slavers."

Mal sat forward a hard look on his face, while Zoe's just got more expressionless but her body tensed. "Slavers", Mal said flatly.

He talked for a good long time. He was just winding down when Inara walked through the doorway, a cane in her hand and Simon holding her under the other shoulder helping her to walk. She was back in her own clothes and looked cleaned up. He grinned at seeing her walking on her own, but she looked concerned. He finished up quickly, "...so as you can see we are both fine and things have worked out much better than I anticipated when I first woke up."

As he looked around at the others he saw shock and concern in their expressions as well. "Really, Inara is right there you can see for yourselves." Suddenly it dawned on him, somewhere in the story he had forgotten the dumb Jayne act. He had spent the last 20 or 30 minutes giving a precise military report speaking very nearly as correctly as Simon or Inara.

Mal's brain was gibbering at him. He wasn't even sure he heard the last half of Jayne's report and report it was, in the army Mal couldn't have expected any better. Jayne's demeanor had changed as he spoke too. His posture had straighten and he sat at the table speaking like a gentleman sitting in a club. Casual but dignified.

Zoe looked very focused and had her hand down near her mare's-leg, Kaylee just looked confused and Simon almost needed Inara to hold him up as he stared in disbelief.

River just patted him on the arm. "More Jayne now", she stated emphatically, "told them." She looked sternly at Zoe, "He is not what you are thinking!"

Mal stared at Jayne. No, he didn't look like a gentleman, but an officer, sounded like a core officer at that. "What in the gorram hell is going on here?" He drew his pistol and set it on the table.

Jayne slumped into his chair suddenly looking more Jayne-like and scrubbed his face with his hands. "Wŏ de mā." He looked at Inara and gave her a crooked grin, "Best laid plans I guess."

Inara smiled at Jayne's quote. Leaning on her cane, she limped over to stand behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders giving a squeeze, "I'm here." She stated simply.

Jayne leaned his head back against Inara's stomach and closed his eyes feeling the comfort of her presence.

Mal stood up leaning on his arms against the table, gun in a white knuckled grip "You know whats going on and you didn't tell me?" he growled at Inara.

"Please, just listen to what Jayne has to say before you jump to conclusions."

"I've already jumped, so someone better tell me what in the tiān xiăo de is going on if'n they want me to jump back!" Mal snarled at them.

Jayne took a deep breath and reached up to cover Inara's hand with his own. She comforted him by sliding the fingers of her other hand through his hair. He looked around the table at the crew.

Mal's face whitened at the sight of Inara and Jayne giving each other comfort.

"I explained about Inara's turmoil regarding what her captor did to her", Jayne waited for everyone to nod, holding Mal's gaze until he reluctantly nodded as well. "In order to help her, I had to tell her about things in my life that I have kept hidden, even repressed for over 15 years. Doing so seems to have broken down some of the walls that I had built around those things and they seem to be reintegrating quite rapidly. Sometimes I speak and even think as the Jayne Cobb I've been for the last 18 years, other times as the Jayne I was trained to be."

Simon nodded, "I've read studies about that sort of repression, it usually appears in people held in abusive situations for long periods of time." He looked at Jayne speculatively. "Sometimes people reintegrate slowly, other times its almost as if a whole new person appears overnight." He chuckled, "In those instances it seems that it's the people closest to them that need the most help from the psychs."

Jayne nodded gratefully at Simon. Then his gaze hardened, "I'm only going through this once, if ya have any questions after, I'd appreciate it if you could talk with Inara, she's heard more of the details than I'm willing to share here." He looked up at her, checking to see if she was ok with that and smiling in thanks when she nodded.

Staring at the wall over their heads he began to speak, "I've always implied that I left home when I was about 14..." Jayne told them the story much as he had to Inara but with significantly fewer details regarding his guild training and his treatment by the slavers. He also left out the 'healing session' he and Inara had shared earlier in the day.

Mal finally sat back down. He didn't look any less tense, but, the fear that Jayne was some sort of Alliance spy had gone as he listened. Mostly he just watched Inara running her fingers through Jayne's hair, comforting him and the look of affection on her face. His anger grew but the situation didn't look like it was going to let him shoot Jayne or throw him out the airlock to feel better.

When Jayne finished there was silence around the table. Zoe was looking at Jayne with a thoughtful expression on her face.

The healer in Simon obviously wanted to offer help but he had no idea what kind, Jayne's experiences were too far outside of his knowledge, there was nothing to cut and nothing to heal with medicines. "If I can be of any help for talking or whatever, Jayne, please feel free see me."

Kaylee's head rested on Jayne's shoulder tears running down her cheeks.

River smiled at him, her eyes floating in unshed tears. "You understand me now."

Jayne smiled tiredly at her, "Just a little, I'm not any gorram genius like some."

She giggled, "Thats true."

Mal's fury at Inara crested. "Well that explains why the whores love Jayne", he spat out, staring at Inara. Almost immediately he regretted the words but no way in hell was he gonna take them back. Seeing them together had felt like a slap in the face, she couldn't find a way to be with him in nearly two years, yet 8 days alone with Jayne and, GAAH he so didn't want to think about that.

Inara's face became hard as she returned his glare. "Of course Mal, grown up men who know the way to a woman's bed isn't through insults are always a pleasure to be around."

Jayne spoke before Mal could start another round of meanness, "Don't say it Mal, you'll just regret it."

Mal snarled through tightly clenched jaws, "Don't. You. Tell. Me. What. To. Do. On. My. Ship!"

Jayne slowly stood up, a sad expression on his face, "Of course Mal." He looked down at the table then looked at Mal, seeing the fury in his eyes, "It's just that, you _are_ a good man Mal, one of the best I've ever known, sides Book, and I know that in your heart you know hurting her won't make you feel a gorram bit better, it'll just hurt you worse later."

The words ruptured Mal's fury like a pinprick to a balloon. He deflated into his chair as if the only thing holding him up had been the anger. He stood up slowly, moving like a creaky old man. "We're all tired here, everyone get to bed. I'll be on the bridge."


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

River peeked into Jayne's bunk head first. It was quite irritating not being able to tell what people were doing or where they were. Very inefficient to have to search all over the ship to find them, and then maybe they were busy once you did. Jayne was lying on his bunk, hands behind his head staring at the ceiling. River wondered where his mind was. With Inara maybe or back being a slave or maybe not really anywhere at all, just flitting from one thing to another. Sometimes that's what she did when everyone was asleep and it got quiet.

Jayne noticed River peering down at him from his port. "Hey Ni Zi, how are you doing with not being able to read everyone now?" he asked.

River was startled. This new Jayne was much more perceptive than the old. "Frustrating, can't tell when it is ok to bother someone."

He chuckled, "Come on in, its ok to bother this someone anyway. Don't mean to keep puttin you off, but I'm not quite ready for the God questions yet. You'n me'll have to sit down with Inara for that."

River held on to the edge of the port and carefully rotated her body through a slow somersault and dropped to her feet in the room. "It's ok, only fair. Inara was with you when you took me to see Him."

She came over and sat next to his bunk, her feet tucked partially under her. Jayne turned in the bunk and propped himself up on his elbow to rest his head on his hand.

"You healed me. We don't have to talk about God, but I have been needing to tell you since it happened." She looked at him from behind her hair trying to judge if it had been ok to tell. "Not all the way, I don't think even God could heal me all the way", she said, a wistful tone in her voice.

Jayne reached out and tucked River's hair behind her ears first one side, then the other. He put his fingers under her chin and raised her face so she was looking at him. "What do you mean I healed you, River?" Jayne was very concerned, this didn't sound good at all. Or rather it sounded too good to be true so might mean she was actually worse.

A single tear ran down River's face, "You and Inara, when you took me to see God. He burned my mind, burned away things that were there that weren't mine. Got rid of things that didn't fit."

Reaching out and pulling River into a hug Jayne held her while she sniffled for a moment. It didn't last very long before she stood up. "You should go to her, she won't take her smoother until she sees you." She quirked her lips at his startled look, "Didn't read her, don't need to read people for some things. Like you said I'm a genius." As he started to ask she added, "She's in the passenger cabins." With that parting comment she scampered up the ladder her dress swirling, looking for all the world like a small child playing.

Well I'll be a qīngwā cào de liúmáng, maybe she is better, Jayne thought. Then he followed her up to find Inara.

Inara lay snuggled in the bed holding her pillow and watching the door she had left cracked open for Jayne. She hoped he would come tonight. She needed to know if he was all right after the way things had gone at the dinner table with Mal and the crew. Inara really hadn't felt comfortable asking anyone to help her to his bunk and Kaylee had needed to fuss and take care of her for awhile to make sure she felt welcomed back.

So here she was tucked in at the other end of the ship, warm and cozy and she felt less comfortable than she had in that hole in the snow with Jayne holding her.

A dark shadow blocked the light from the hallway. She raised her head up. "Jayne?" she called softly.

"How are you feeling Inara?" He asked.

The low rumble of his voice soothed her almost immediately. She let her head settle back on the pillow with relief. "My leg is cramping from all the walking and standing I did tonight, but I'm fine. How are you?" She asked.

"I'm really sorry about earlier, I thought I could just be old Jayne at least for a little while, didn't even realize what I was doing 'til too late." Jayne leaned against the door jam.

Why wasn't he coming in? Inara wondered, losing the relaxed feeling that his appearance had given her. "Its fine Jayne, I wasn't faking it well either. When you were showing me off to Simon, I was so relaxed and comfortable with you that I didn't even think about being naked until Mal showed up." She raised her head up and asked, her fear at the answer making her voice quiver, "Why aren't you coming in, Jayne?"

He looked down watching his foot as he kicked at the floor. "I wasn't sure you'd still be comfortable with me coming here after all that went on today."

She sat up letting the blankets drop to her waist and exposing her perfect breasts to the light from the doorway. She mock frowned at him and put her fists on her hips. "Jayne Cobb you are asking the wrong question entirely!"

Jayne stopped kicking at the floor and looked up at her. His jaw dropped at the stunning woman displayed before him. The shadows covered and revealed her golden body in a way that designers since the beginning of time had striven to recreate in mere cloth. He gulped, "What is the right question Inara?"

Her radiant smile calmed him, "You should be asking if there is any possible way I could be comfortable _without_ you here after all that has happened today!" She opened her arms, beckoning him to come to her.

Jayne grumped at her, "Well I suppose I could come in for a bit and see to that cramp in your leg, just don't be tryin any a those companiony wiles on me. I know all about such tricks and they won't work on me."

Her peal of delighted laughter rang throughout the ship as he closed the door.

Jayne sat on the edge of her bunk and pulled her into a tight hug. They sat that way holding each other as the tensions of the last few hours bled away. He pulled away from her, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently. "Lay back now and let me see to that leg." He stood and started undressing.

Inara's eyes glowed and her tongue flicked at her lower lip as she watched him undress. "And what precisely are you going to do with my leg", she asked with a catch in her voice as he pulled down his pants he wasn't wearing underwear. She slid the blankets off, exposing her lower body.

"Ancient secret massage technique, I'm not allowed to tell." His eyes flicked to her waist, noticing that she was wearing the panties he had made her.

Following his gaze, Inara ran her thumbs under the waistband of the panties and ran her hands back and forth lifting the band off her flesh. She looked up at him, "I've decided you're going to have to make me another dozen pairs of these Jayne. They make me feel warm and comfortable, as if you were holding me in your hands."

Jayne licked his lips and raised an eyebrow. "Don't reckon my hands would be making you precisely comfortable if they was holding you like that," he gave her a wicked grin.

"Hmm, perhaps comfortable wasn't precisely the word I was looking for then", Inara responded, sliding the panties down a couple of inches and back up.

Sitting back down on the edge of the bunk Jayne lifted her leg gently into his lap and began kneading the tense muscles. He worked up her quad, then along the inside of her thigh. She sighed and closed her eyes. His hands went back down to her knee and then she felt intense pressure just above her knee. Biting her lower lip she looked down to see what his hands were doing. He had pressed deep into the tissue above and behind her knee with one hand and was slowly manipulating her lower leg making circles. "Just breath through it băobèi, won't let go if you are holding your breath", Jayne said.

Inara smiled inside to hear Jayne's use of an endearment. As she took a few slow breaths, Inara felt a warmth surround her leg at the knee and then spread upward as the muscles let go and the pain lessened.

She closed her eyes again as he began kneading her leg, her breathing getting faster as he gently worked the muscles. His hand wrapped firmly around her inner thigh in the crease of her leg, the fingertips sank into her hamstring just below her bottom and his thumb pressed into the muscles below her hip bone. Again the pressure increased until it was right at the edge of what she could take. This time she controlled her breathing as he moved her whole leg in an intricate pattern. Again she felt the warmth begin in the muscles underneath his hand and spread up into her hip and down into her thigh as the whole joint relaxed. She sighed at the relief, the only pain left was a slight throbbing from the actual wounds.

He stroked and kneaded her leg from top to bottom a few more times causing her breathing to speed up again. Inara bit her lower lip as his fingers traced the crease of her thigh along the edge of her panties. She smiled at him, "You are a man of hidden talents Jayne, the cramping is completely gone."

Jayne glanced down at himself, where it was obvious that the final part of the massage had turned him on as well, and grinned at her, "And some not so hidden ones too, if I do say so myself."

Inara slid back in the bed and tugged at his hand urging him to join her. "Then we shall have to see what we can do about getting that 'talent' tucked away out of sight where it belongs." She held her lower lip in her teeth and peeked up at him through her eyelashes.

Gaah, she looked absolutely delectable, Jayne thought as he slid into bed beside her.

Mal slumped in the pilot's seat staring into the black. A glass of whiskey dangled from his fingers. His thoughts were flying all over the verse as he occasionally sipped from the glass. Jayne was..what the gorram hell was Jayne now? Inara and Jayne ... he winced and took another sip. Inara looked so ēng le shăguā happy! Another wince and another sip. He grimaced, Jayne thought he was a good man. Whatever else Jayne was he was still a yúbèn de wáng bā dàn. The faint echo of Inara's laughter drifted to his ears. Wince, sip. Mal didn't think he'd ever heard her laugh like that, sure as guĭ not because of him.

He had to figure out how to apologize to her, like there was anything new about that. Sigh, another sip. Aught to be ai ya good at that by now. Owed Jayne for getting him to shut up before he really messed up. Mal shook his head chuckling. Maybe there was something to the Jayne is god theory. Jayne saying the right thing to diffuse the situation was something of a miracle, to be sure. Especially since Mal hadn't been any too pleased with him either.

Wonder if they'll stay on Serenity now that Jayne isn't just a merc? Where'n the tiān xiăo de had that thought come from? Course they'd stay, still family regardless of what ever was going on. Wouldn't they? Mal took a big swallow of whiskey at that thought. Then another when he realized he'd thought of Jayne as family. Distant cousin at best. By marriage.

Probably shouldn't rightly be thinkin of them as 'a they' may not last. He cheered up some. Funny things happened when people got thrown together in stressful situations, didn't always last or mean that much. The soft glowey look Inara had given Jayne when she smiled at him in the infirmary floated through his minds eye accompanied by the laugh that had echoed through the ship. Yea Riight. He started to take another sip and realized the glass was empty. He poured himself another couple of fingers of whiskey, thought about it, then poured a couple more.

Vacation. They needed a vacation, they'd been running hard the last month with no stops and the couple of months before that hadn't been much better. He frowned, nowhere too civilized til they got some idea of what the attack had been about. Couldn't relax much if every time someone left the ship they had to keep looking over their shoulder.

They needed the time though, Inara had some healing to do and everyone needed a little time to adjust to the new Jayne, even Jayne hisself Mal reckoned. And Mal needed the time to adjust to whatever was going on between Jayne and Inara. Reckon he needed to see where the new Jayne fit in the operation too. Couldn't really wrap his head around a fighting Companion type person so he'd have to think on that some. He started to take another sip of whiskey and realized his glass was already empty.

He carefully set the glass on the console and stood up. He wavered and held on to the chair until Serenity stopped with the swooping and such. He'd have River dig up someplace in the morning, someplace with a little green and maybe some water and warm, definitely warm. They could just camp for a spell. Have to wave Monte and see if he could handle the load of silk they was supposed to pick up in a few days.

Mal staggered off to his bunk calmer, if not quite at peace with all the change.


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Kaylee carefully balanced the tray of food as she knocked on Inara's door. "Inara you up? I brung ya some food." She frowned as she heard the low rumbling of Jayne's voice, puncuated by Inara's soft giggle. Jayne musta got here first, she hadn't seen him in the galley though and she'd been up for hours. She had been so caught up in Jayne's story the previous night that she hadn't picked up on the undercurrents between Jayne and Inara.

The door slid open and she swept right past Jayne's hand, held out for the tray, without seeing it. "I thought you might be pretty hungry after havin to live on the go se food paste for the last week." Inara looked mighty good after all she'd been through. She was sitting up with a huge grin on her face. Kaylee grinned back. She didn't think she'd ever seen Inara smile that big before. As she set the tray on Inara's lap she realize that Inara was looking back toward the door still grinning. Kaylee almost dumped the tray in Inara's lap when she looked back.

Jayne still stood next to door his hand held out, flushed bright red looking completely embarrassed. He was also naked except for a blanket held tightly wrapped around his waist. "Oh! I didn't ... Sorry I should" Kaylee stammered.

Zoe slid through the door, "Mornin Inara, how ya feeling?" She stopped. Inara's hands covered her mouth as she fought her best to hold back the laugh gurgling up from inside. Zoe's eyes tracked from Kaylee's stunned expression to Inara who was looking back and forth between the two of them to something just behind Zoe. Zoe put her hand on her gun and spun around.

Jayne's shoulders slumped in defeat, his embarrassment changing to chagrin and a little fear as his gaze jumped from Zoe's face to her gun and back.

"Zoe." Jayne nodded.

Zoe looked over at Inara then back at Jayne, her slow smile spread across her face as she looked Jayne up and down, letting her eyes rest on the lower half of his body. She looked up at his face. "Mornin Jayne. You look a might peaked, you feelin all right?"

Jayne felt the heat as he blushed even harder, probably gorram glowing red by now from the feel of it.

Unable to hold it in any longer, Inara's laugh gurgled out followed closely by Kaylee's delighted giggles.

The heat of embarrassment ebbed, exchanged for a soft smile as he looked at Inara's delighted face. He looked back at Zoe, "Fine Zoe, might tired is all." He winced as he realized how it sounded and the heat of his blush rushed back as the laughter around him redoubled with even Zoe chuckling.

Looking at the two women, Jayne knew he wasn't gonna get them out of there so he could dress. He also knew that trying to sneak back to his bunk wrapped in a blanket was about the dumbest thing he could do, especially given how the sneaking was going today. Straightening his shoulders he marched to his clothes feeling a bit like he was going before a firing squad. He dropped the blanket and dressed quickly trying to shut out the appreciative murmurs behind him.

Finished buttoning his shirt he turned and looked at Inara. He grinned at her, "See ya later ai ren, think I'm gonna go and study up some on how ta be sneaky."

Fresh giggles broke out all around as he turned towards the doorway. Mal stepped into the room looking a might put out. "Whats all this giggling and funnin? Ain't supposed to be no funnin on my ship that I ain't part of." He was making the attempt to smile although it kinda twisted his face funny. Jayne brushed past him muttering, "Gorram fēng le shăguā women" and disappeared up the hall. He figured with Zoe and Kaylee in the room Mal couldn't get too mean.

Mal looked around at the three women seeing their laughter die, although they all had sparkly looks in their eye from amusement. "Morning Inara, you look good this morning."

"Thank you Mal." Inara watched him, waiting to see which way he was going to jump.

"I was wondering if I could talk to you a minute," he motioned at her food tray "when you're up and about that is, no rush."

"That would be fine, I've just woken up so maybe we could meet there" she pointed towards the common room outside her door "in a couple of hours? It will take me a little while to get ready, It will take awhile to get around and ready due to my injuries."

Mal quickly agreed, "Thats fine, take your time." He looked around at the three of them, "I figure after all the excitement we could use a little down time so I got River hunting us a quiet place to put down for a few days. No where in civilization ya understand, least til we know whats going on, but somewhere warm and green with maybe some water for swimmin and what not."

Mal thought he would burst from pleasure at the delighted look on Inara's face. Even Zoe cracked a grin at the news. Kaylee rushed over and grabbed him around the waist with a big hug, "I love my Captain!" The smile on his face came easily now that he was on his way to setting things right.

As Mal closed the door behind him he heard the twittering and giggling start.

Inara fidgeted at the door breathing deeply trying to get her face to settle into her Companion's mask. She hadn't needed it for over a week now and it just didn't want to sit right. How could a technique she had used most of her life feel so awkward, so rapidly? Her hands caressed her hips through the dress, comforted by the feel of the underwear Jayne had made.. She grinned, she really did need to get him to make her more so she wouldn't have to keep washing these out. She took another deep breath. Ok, she could do this, she thought, finally settling for a serious look and giving up on her mask.

Mal stood up as Inara's door opened. He was relieved to see that she didn't have the companiony expression he hated so much on her face. His brow wrinkled in concentration, in fact, looked like she didn't have much makeup on at all.

Inara stopped, noticing Mal's frown. Go Se, she'd been hoping he was going to be somewhat rational after the way he had spoken earlier.

When Inara stopped, Mal realized he had been frowning at her and looked like some sort of ass. He quickly smiled and offered his arm to assist her over to a chair. "Sorry, was trying to figure out why you looked odd." Oh, yea, Mal, stick your foot in your mouth already. "Not bad!" He rushed to say. "Better even, was just trying to figure it out."

She relaxed as he attempted to explain. Good, he was trying to behave. She let him help her to the chair. "What did you decide?"

"About? Oh, you don't look as," he paused, trying to think of a way to say it without being insulting, "companyiony." She raised an eyebrow. "Not so much makeup" he hurried to add.

Inara's eyes dropped. She hid her discomfort by seating herself. In truth, had she not had the appointment with Mal, she probably wouldn't have worn any makeup. She had started to do her face in her normal way but it had felt wrong, much like the professional expression she couldn't seem to settle her face into.

"You wanted to talk to me?" She tried to keep her face somewhat expressionless.

He focused, trying to remember the speech he had been working on for the last four hours. Nothing, the gorram thing was gone. He'd have to wing it. He chuckled to himself, seemed like that was what most of his 'plans' came to. He wasn't sure why he bothered with a plan in the first place. "Look, I'm sorry about last night." He held up his hand to stop her interruption. "Just let me talk it out first then I'll listen."

Inara nodded her agreement.

"You and me, well it just ain't been coming around. Been obvious for some time now. I knew before last night, I just...sometimes its hard to let something go when you been waiting and hoping for it to happen for long enough. And then last night I kept seein you act to Jayne the way I always wanted you to act to me. Hit me hard and caught me by surprise is all. Kinda twisted me around." He looked at her with regret. "Thats all I reckon, no excuses, I'm just sorry. 'bout a lot of things."

Tears welled up in Inara's eyes as she considered him. She wondered what might have been between them had they both been the people they were now, back when they had first met. "I'm sorry too Mal. We didn't intend our homecoming to drop such a bomb on everyone. We really tried to keep it simple and let it come about slowly but..." she shrugged helplessly. "It's not really about Jayne _and_ I, its more about each of us individually. I couldn't tell you what or why or even when I changed inside myself the last week. I just did and it feels wonderful."

"About you and Jayne, you be careful and not get hurt there. Ain't sayin nothin against him, ya understand, reckon I don't rightly know him well enough anymore to say one way or 'tother but sometimes when folks go through a stressful situation together...well things start feelin a might different than what they really are." He watched her face hoping he had managed to get that out without stepping on her toes any.

She dabbed at her eyes, then smiled gratefully at him. "Thank you Mal, believe me we are aware of that possibility. We've talked about it, a little." They had, briefly, before they drifted off to sleep the night before. Neither of them had wanted to examine their relationship very closely yet and had decided to just wait and see what happened.

Mal was amazed, he'd seen more of what he suspected was the 'real' Inara in the last two days than he had in the two years he'd known her. "Well I got captainy things to go do, need to see if River found us a place for our vacation and what not" Mal said, getting up. Monty had been available to take their next couple of runs over, so they had a couple of weeks or so to relax. "Can I help ya get anywhere?"

"No thank you, I've been up and about more today than I have in the last week and I'm feeling tired. I think I'll go lay back down for awhile."

"Well, ifn you need anything just let us know, I'm sure anyone'll be happy to get it for ya" he said, before heading off to be captainy.

Mal stopped to watch Jayne eating when he got to the dining room. Looked like regular Jayne right now. Man ate like his food was gonna up and run off if he gave it time. Jayne nodded at him without slowing down. "Mal" he said around a bite.

"Jayne. Suppose you heard about us stoppin for a breather." Jayne nodded. "Figured we should give Inara time to heal up and you to ... integrate your ... whatever." Mal's brain stumbled over just what to call whatever was happening to Jayne.

Jayne grunted, "appreciate it" and continued eating.

Mal chuckled. Pure Jayne, cept with words. "You plannin on staying with us, now that...well, now?" He tried to keep any tension out of his voice.

The question stopped Jayne, his mouth wide open and the fork half-way up. Jayne closed his mouth and sat up, panic causing his face to tighten. "Reckon so."

Mal nodded, "thats that." And walked through the room. At least Jayne hadn't gone all touchy-feely and companiony on him. He didn't think he could handle it if Jayne started wantin to talk about feelings and such.

Kaylee bustled into the room as Inara finally got settled in bed. Inara was thankful that her clothing ran towards dresses and things that came off easily, she really was very tired. She was going to have to get some new clothing though, like so much in her life right now, the things that were the most familiar just didn't seem to sit right with her any more.

"I found you that cloth and the sewing kit you asked for, they was right were you said they'd be. You really gonna have Jayne make you more panties?" Inara had told her about the panties when Kaylee was helping her get ready. She had had to since Kaylee had mentioned just bringing more of her underthings from the shuttle when she was washing them out.

Inara gave her an impish grin. "Definitely, it is an incredibly sexy feeling wearing something so intimate that a man has made with his own hands specifically for you."

Kaylee gasped, "Well I think it's all kinds of shiny." She thought wistfully of Simon. Much as she cared for him, the man was much better at putting his foot in his mouth than romantic gestures. "You n Jayne an' you AND Jayne, seems like so much happening. I can't hardly believe it none."

Inara chuckled, "you should try it from the inside if it seems confusing from outside."

"Reckon I'll let you get some sleep, you look wore out." Kaylee gave Inara a quick kiss and hug. "You want me to wake you for dinner if you're still sleeping, or just set a tray by the bed here?"

"Please wake me or send Jayne, I'd like to get up for dinner" Inara answered drowsily. "Thank you Mei Mei."

River slipped in Inara's door and watched her sleep. She nearly stomped her foot in frustration. No wonder people always did the wrong thing at the wrong time. Not only did they have to find each other once, but more than once if someone was busy or SLEEPING or something. They probably just said what they needed when they got the chance instead of waiting for the right time. She had gotten used to thinking people were just that much more stupid than she was. Inara probably wouldn't mind too much if River woke her up, but if she was asleep at this time of day probability was good that she should be sleeping. River sighed dramatically and slipped back out the door. It seemed like she was going to have to make an _appointment_ with them. She made a face as if she had eaten something bad. Blech, so inefficient.

As Jayne helped Inara get settled in her seat at the dinner table, Inara noticed a small slip of paper sticking out from beneath her plate. Glancing at Jayne's plate she saw that he had one too. Kaylee, however, did not. Slipping it out she unfolded it.

Inara,

I would like to schedule an **appointment** with you and Jayne for 22:00 tonight. I wish to speak about God.

Nod at me if this is acceptable.

River'

Stifling a giggle, Inara pulled Jayne's note out and handed it to him. He read his with a little snort. The looked up to find River staring at them intently, tapping her fork against the table. They both nodded. River's expression eased as she nodded back.

She and Jayne had discussed River's focus on God and that she had probably been overwhelmed by the emotions they had been generating when doing the healing ritual. She was not at all certain how they were going to explain what had happened to the very literal minded River.

She frowned, she supposed they should talk to Simon as well since it might shed some light on whatever was blocking River's ability to read them. Not at the same time though. Zoe had explained exactly what River's reaction had been and warned Inara that River was likely to have questions. She definitely did not want to tell Simon it had been a ritual that included sex and had apparently caused his MeiMei to experience a rather impressive orgasm.

Inara sighed, that brought up another problem, River's expectations regarding orgasms in general after that experience, especially for what was probably her first orgasm that she hadn't given herself. She and Jayne had a great deal to discuss before their appointment with River.


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Inara sat stiffly on the couch. She looked around, being back in her shuttle was making her uncomfortable. She needed to examine the feelings of dissatisfaction her things were awakening in her before much longer. She really didn't want to yet. She grinned at herself, she was having too much fun right now. Jayne and Kaylee had spent the afternoon straightening the shuttle. They had it in good shape, although, she would have to provide the finishing touches herself.

She and Jayne had decided that the shuttle offered the best location for the discussion with River. It offered more space for sitting and the support of a more formal atmosphere than her small room in the dorm.

Dinner had gone much better than she thought possible. She and Jayne had restrained their tendency to touch and hold hands, as much as they could without being totally uncomfortable anyway, Jayne had been mostly regular Jayne and Mal had graciously ignored anything he noticed. She smirked, Mal and gracious not being two words she usually found in the same thought. It had taken Kaylee, Zoe and Simon a few minutes to relax and be comfortable with the idea that there didn't appear to be any major explosions coming, but once everyone had settled down, it had been fun. She laughed, especially when the others would stare in astonishment at how playful she and Jayne were with them all.

She heard Jayne and River coming up the steps. Hearing Jayne clumping along as was usual for him gave her the opportunity to settle her mind. She stood as they entered. "Mei Mei, welcome. Come in and sit down." Inara directed River to one of the chairs set with two others in a triangle. She had wanted to make sure that if there were any confusion or rancor during the discussion it would not appear to be two against one.

"It is permissible that I arrive early to my 'appointment'? I have very little knowledge of the etiquette surrounding 'appointments'." River spat out the word, appointment, as if it were a curse. She sat with her legs pulled up under her chin and a very petulant expression on her face.

Inara and Jayne sat. They had decided that Inara would lead the conversation and Jayne would jump in to support if it looked like she was having difficulties. "River would you mind explaining to us what or why you would like us to tell you about god?"

River rolled her eyes, still in a bad mood about the whole appointment thing. "Lets see, you and Jayne were having sex, you both screamed GOD in both voice and mind, and then I saw him. I felt the burning in my head and all over my body and I ..." she slowed down and blushed, as her eyelashes fluttered and she shivered as she became aroused at the memory. "I came. A lot. It was very messy." River wrinkled her nose as she considered all the cleaning up she'd had to do.

"He burned my eyes so bad I saw spots for hours afterward. People are loud when they are sexin' so I know that it isn't unusual for people to yell God. But only when you did it has anyone I know ever actually seen him. He healed me." Her excitement for the subject returned. "I want to know about him and how to go see him myself." She considered Jayne for a moment, "Or with another person if that is necessary."

"Réncí de Fozu" Inara murmured. This was going to be difficult. Perhaps if she could keep her explanation on a somewhat scientific level... "Mei Mei, I'm sure you are familiar with the principles of acupressure, am I correct?"

River nodded hesitantly.

"What Jayne and I were doing was a ritual, not just having sex or making love. The ritual involved carefully manipulating many pressure points that open up various parts of the mind, body and psyche. Because of the emotional trauma that Jayne and I had shared with each other regarding what happened to me during my capture and him while revisiting his past, we activated those points on each other. Normally for the healing ritual there is only one recipient. Am I expressing myself in a way that makes sense?

"Hyper awareness, increased blood flow, energetic manipulation using meridians resulting in a breakdown of psychological protective mechanisms compounded and enhanced through mutual sexual stimulation."

A quirky smile flickered across Inara's lips. She nodded. "I think what happened then, is that our combined emotional output was so high, you received it empathetically from both of us and had the same points activated in you. The healing you experienced was a normal, if significantly stronger than usual, byproduct of the ritual. I'm sorry Mei Mei, but I don't think we saw god. Not as a person, like you were thinking." Inara waited, concerned with what River's response might be.

River's response was muffled by her knees as she pulled them tighter to herself. "So you don't think we saw God? I won't ever feel that way again?"

Jayne knelt next to River's chair and rubbed her back, waiting to see if she was willing to be comforted. She leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his neck sniffling. He picked her up with his arm under her legs and carried her to the couch and held her on his lap. Inara came and sat next to them, wrapped her arms around them both and kissed River on the forehead. "We didn't see him in that way Mei Mei, I'm sorry. But it isn't impossible to feel that way again. Not exactly the same, but much better when you have a special ai ren with you instead of being alone."

River raised her face from Jayne's shirt and sniffled, looking through her hair at Inara. "Kaylee and Simon never see the lights. Zoe and Wash didn't either."

Inara smiled and tucked Rivers hair back behind her ears and cupped her face in her palms tilting her chin up. She leaned forward and whispered, "I'll tell you a secret Mei Mei, if you don't see the lights at least some of the time there are many things you and your ai ren could be doing better. You have to keep that between us, now, you can't say anything to Simon or Kaylee and especially not to Zoe."

River grinned and hugged Inara. "I understand, must not make them feel like boobs."

Jayne chuckled and hugged them both tight.

River hopped up and spun towards the door. She stopped and stared at them. "I would like you" she carefully looked first at Inara then Jayne, "to teach me about sex. Teach me right, not just hints and giving books like you have in the past" she frowned at Inara. She transferred her gaze to Jayne and looked at him steadily. Still stunned about being included in her first request, Jayne began to feel uneasy under her steady gaze. "I wish Jayne to take my virginity. Not now, but after I have begun my training."

Shaken completely out of their calm, Inara and Jayne's voices stumbled over each other "River that's not...I can't do...We can't"

Jayne said, "River it wouldn't be right for me to do that."

River frowned at them until they paused for a breath. "I don't understand. I thought it was one of the greatest gifts Companion's had to give." She looked at Inara "I have heard you say this." River was worried, zāogāo had she asked this at the wrong time? Huài le it was so hard to look after people when you couldn't tell exactly when it was ok to say things, not to mention having to have appointments.

Jayne and Inara looked at each other. "River," Jayne began "the problem isn't just with your request. The problem is partly that I'm not sure if I am a Companion right now. Although there are plenty of problems with the request its own self."

Tears welled in Inara's eyes as she nodded. She began to understand her discomfort.

River raised an eyebrow, "Neither of you?"

Inara looked down at her hands and shook her head. Jayne gaped at her.

River laughed at them "Niúshĭ, let me know when you are ready to begin." She skipped out of the room.

Jayne and Inara slumped against each other.

Jayne put his arm around Inara's shoulders and pulled her in tight. "You handled that very well băobèi." She leaned against his chest. Jayne kissed the top of her head. "you didn't tell me."

"I didn't know until you said it out loud. Then I realized why I have been so uncomfortable with all of my things."

"She is a genius, could be she'll turn out right."

Inara closed her eyes. "I can't see it from here Jayne."

Jayne shook his head, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Me either băobèi, me either.

Inara raised up and kissed Jayne softly. Then smiled a beautiful and loving smile at him. "I'm fine either way, ai ren, the only requirement is that I stay this happy. I do feel lost at not knowing what I might end up doing, but going back to the sense of ..." She searched for the right word. "Incompleteness I've had for so many years is not an option."


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Inara leaned back in the pilot's chair in her shuttle. Her conversation with Sheydra at Madrassa House had been deeply disturbing. She had contacted the Guild to discuss her injuries and having been taken by slavers. Initially she had been ordered back to Madressa. When she resisted that idea, Sheydra, had insisted on making arrangements for a Protector to join them. She was concerned at the methodology of her abduction and the implication that the slavers were quite aware that Inara was a Companion given the type of trainer she had been given to.

Inara couldn't allow a Protector to join them. A Protector would report on her suitability for continuing as a Companion and while she was uncertain that she wanted to continue, she was quite aware that she wouldn't pass any tests regarding that suitability and didn't want to damage her standing in the Guild before she had made her choice. She snorted, not to mention that the impact on the crew would have been horrendous, assuming Mal would even allow it.

In absolute desperation, Inara had mentioned Jayne and the fact that he had been trained as a Protector, only intending to imply she was sufficiently protected. Inara may no longer be able to use her Companion's facial control properly but she could still read Sheydra. Sheydra had been surprised. She had left the screen for a couple of minutes and came back and accepted Jayne as Inara's Protector, with only one requirement. Inara had to inform him that he had been moved from inactive status to active and that he now had access to a Protector's funds. She had even been given the banking information that Jayne would need to access the funds. And Sheydra had been ... well, smug, was the only way to describe her expression. To top the insanity off, Inara had been given an unlimited leave of absence without being removed from active status which meant that she would not have to re-test, unless she went past her annual exam anniversary, in order to resume being a Companion whenever she chose.

Inara's mind roiled with confusion. Jayne was on the Guilds records as Inactive. That meant he had completed his Protector's training. To be activated after 18 years without any examination had implications that Inara couldn't even begin to imagine. There was no way that Sheydra had the authority to take any of those actions on her own, which meant she'd had to wave someone off planet. No, she hadn't been off screen long enough to do that, there had to be some sort of standing order regarding Jayne.

Inara's heart seemed to stop as she realized what she may have done to Jayne. Réncí de Fozu, please don't let her have hurt him or damaged things between them. She reached for the com to call him. No, she would tell him tonight, before bed. She sighed. Maybe after bed, just in case it was the last time she got to feel him wrapped around her.

Jayne raised the lid on the pot and stirred the stew. Lifting the spoon he tasted the rich gravy. Mal and River were doin right fine by them, they had real food pretty much all the time these days. Made cooking more fun when ya had sumat besides protein flavors to mix.

"That your famous stew I'm smelling Jayne?" Kaylee chirped at him.

"Infamous more like Kaylee," He grinned at her.

She shook her head, "I swear, ain't never gonna get used to your new manner of speechifyin. makes me look around see where the ventriloquist is hid." Kaylee poured herself a cup of coffee and hopped up to sit on the counter.

"Simon ask you ta marry im yet this week?" Soon after Simon moved into Kaylee's bunk he'd asked her to marry him. Kaylee would've liked to marry him, but somehow the Doc had put his foot in it again and made her think he was askin because it was proper not cause he really wanted to. Now he kept on pushin it and he still hadn't figured out where he was going wrong so he kept coming up with reasons they should get married without just saying he wanted her.

"Think he got offn his schedule a bit, what with looking for you and Inara and all." Kaylee leaned forward on her arms and swung her feet. She looked at Jayne out of the corner of her eye. "Speakin a you an Nara, I think its right sweet."

Jayne held up the spoon for Kaylee to taste. "Need anything?" He asked as she tasted.

Kaylee shook her head, "Nope, got that bite I like right enough." She tried again, "Nara sure seems all sparkley and glowin over you sure enough." Kaylee giggled thinking of Inara all excited about wearing the panties Jayne had made.

Jayne chuckled as he put the lid back on the pot and leaned against the counter opposite Kaylee. "Reckon I'm feelin pretty shiny over her my ownself."

"Awww, you love her?"

Jayne grunted, "I ain't lookin past us being a might glowey at one another just yet. Things being as unsettled as they are n all. Figure she may come to her senses for long."

"Who's gonna come to their senses?" Zoe asked as she wandered in and raised the lid on the stew and let the steam waft past her nose. "Smells like it's got that bite."

Jayne handed her the spoon.

"Jayne reckons Nara'll come to her senses about him. It ain't like that Jayne."

Jayne shrugged and grunted.

"Good batch." Zoe licked her lips and set the spoon down. She looked Jayne over, "You seen Inara jump in and out of feelings for people often Jayne?"

Jayne grunted "Ya'll go on, I'm cooking in here. Dinner ain't for nother hour." He grabbed plates and started setting the table.

Kaylee looked at Zoe and giggled, "Got more'n I thought, still ain't used to him bein all wordy."

"BaBa you have a wave from Fechin, I'm putting it down to you now." River's voice came from the com in Mal's bunk. He put down the pistol he was cleaning and flicked on the wave. "Mr. Reynolds, a pleasure to see you." Fechin greeted Mal.

"Like wise Mr. Connor. You able to find anything out for us?" Fechin frowned slightly. Mal tried but he tended to be a might more hasty getting to business than Fechin liked. He preferred to make a round about approach to discussing business. "A whisper or two possibly. May be something, may be nothing. Around the edges of my affairs where we have to cope with the truly unpleasant members of society, I'm finding that there is a notification request regarding you and yours."

"You mean to say a 'wave this id if you see em' sort of thing?"

"Not quite that direct or I would have more information for you, but in essence correct. Seems someone is trying to keep tabs on you."

"What sort of unpleasant people?"

"Ones who's entire enterprises are very illegal. Slavers, pirates, Crash runners, some of the larger groups that run the specialty whorehouses, more in line with slavery than the delightful young women your man Jayne enjoys."

Mal got distracted for a moment. Jayne and his whores. Wonder how Inara would take Jayne going to see a whore. Not like she could get all indignant about it. Mal snorted, what man in his right mind would go off and see a whore when he had Inara though. Mal hoped Jayne would, not so's anyone would get hurt mind you, he just wanted to see what happened.

"I've also had a couple of indirect inquiries regarding your availability for moving goods. Not asking for you by name. Just 'did I know of anyone reliable to transport questionable products discretely' with hedging around in the hopes I'd say the right name. Seems like they haven't caught on yet that you don't shade the gray stretch between legal and illegal quite as far into the dark as you once did. I would suggest you take care handling any transport for folks you don't know personally."

"That don't bode well for me and mine. Things have been going along lately, workin for right many new folk."

"It wouldn't appear that you need concern yourself with direct action yet, but there is no telling what they could put together if they know your schedule."

Mal nodded thoughtfully, they might could work with that. "I appreciate your lookin into this for us Mr. Connor. I reckon I owe ya one. Say how's that nephew of yours doing?" Fechin had been helpful so Mal figured it was the least he could do to play the chit chat game with him. Might even help keep the favor he was gonna owe reasonable.

Mal hurried toward the dinning room, gorram Fechin had kept him chatting past dinner time. Mal could keep him from getting started with the chit chat, but couldn't do a gorram thing to get him shut up once he got started. He grinned as heard the chatter and laughing of the crew as they ate. Dinner had been right fun lately with Jayne and Inara cutting up and joining in with the naturally playful Kaylee. Almost as enjoyable as when Book and Wash had been with them. Dinners had been pretty somber what with missing Wash and his jokes and Book's stories. It was starting to feel more like home again.

"Who said you could start without me?" Mal mock frowned at them as he dropped into his seat.

Jayne threw a roll at him as Kaylee, chirped in "Ain't our fault Cap'n see'n as River said you n Fechin was gonna be awhile.

"Man can take his own sweet bung of a time finishing up a talk, thats sure." Mal ladled a heap of the stew on to his plate. He noticed that Inara didn't look as cheerful and happy as she had been. She kept sneaking glances at Jayne, she would reach her hand over and touch his leg then pull it back quick.

Jayne stopped eating, put his arm on the back of Inara's chair and captured her hand in his other one, comforting her. He gave her a puzzled look as if to ask what was going on. She shook her head and sighed, more in resignation than relaxation. Frowning, Jayne went back to eating but kept hold of her hand.

"He have any news for us Cap'n" Zoe asked.

Mal told them about his discussion with Fechin. He made sure to be looking at Jayne when he mentioned what Fechin had said about the whores. Inara looked to be trying to pull her hand back but Jayne didn't let it go. He put his arm around her again and whispered in her ear and she relaxed, or at least relaxed as much as she had been. Mal flinched a little when he noticed Kaylee's glare at him.

"I look for us to keep the contact's quick, stay in groups of two or more while we take care of necessities. Make sure we take our ease places other than where we are working. Back to the good ole days when we never knew who was lookin to do us harm."

"He didn't mention any connection to Blue Sun? Simon asked putting his arm around River.

Mal wished he had waited til after dinner to bring this all up. Between him and his whore comment and Simon they'd pretty much put a stop to any funnin tonight. He shook his head. "They ain't been obvious so far. Well other than the gloves, but they don't have to take a hand in it themselves to throw those around. I conjure they ain't got the Alliance to help out with warrants and such anymore so they're lookin for a new way to bedevil us."

Mal lightened his expression in attempt to cheer things back up. "The good news is, River says we'll be at Perez Moon tomorrow. Supposed to be a pretty place. Only people there are farmers and such, so no big cities, no Alliance. Population pretty light and spread out. I conjure we can spot us a shiny place out away from folk, maybe trade for some fresh food if we've a mind. Don't reckon we'll have to worry much about that other out there."

Thankful to not have to think about the Blue Hands and folks hunting them just yet, the crew became more animated and started peppering River with questions about their vacation spot. Mal noticed that not quite everyone cheered up.

With eveyone's attention on River for the moment, Jayne took the opportunity to put his arm around Inara and whisper, "Everything ok Inara? You've kinda been ... a little distant today."

She leaned her forehead against his cheek. "I'm a little worried at the moment Jayne. I guess I'm not much good at hiding it anymore. I think I'll go down to bed now."

"I'll come with you."

"No, you finish eating." She gave him a wan smile "you're way behind on your quota of stew tonight."

He glanced at his nearly full plate and pushed it back. "Don't really taste right, I guess."

She patted him on the cheek and stood up. "Give me few minutes if you would." She pulled his plate back to him "try and eat some more, I wouldn't want you to wither away."

Inara excused herself and headed down to her room.

Jayne pushed his food around his plate and tried to participate in the conversation. Finally he noticed Kaylee frowning at him. "You shouldn't aughta just sit there Jayne, go see to her."

Flashing her a quick grin, Jayne muttered his excuses and headed down. He stopped at the foot of the stairs. He could see her sitting in bed looking at her hands as she picked at her nails. She had brushed her hair out until it glowed and was wearing a silky rose colored nightgown with a neckline that plunged between her full breasts, the silk glowing against her dusky skin. He wondered at the nightgown, Inara usually only wore panties to bed. Somehow she looked like a beautiful woman and a lost child at the same time.

He went in and slid the door closed behind him. "Whats wrong băobèi, you're tearing me up like this."

"Come to bed Jayne, I need you to hold me first then I'll tell you."

Jayne undressed and slipped into the bed taking her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her mouth to his, her tongue frantically plunging into his mouth as she threw her leg over his hip. Desperation lent her strength and she wrapped him to her as tightly as she could. His hand smoothed down the silk covering her back and over her hip onto the soft flesh of her thigh. She covered his hand with hers and brought it up under the edge of her gown to cup her rear.

Finally releasing his mouth she pressed her cheek to his chest over his heart and told him of her conversation with Sheydra and what it might imply. As she talked she could feel his heart speed up and his body become still and rigid. When he slipped away from her to sit up, she nearly cried with the effort it took to let him go. She sat watching his face as he stared into the distance. I'm so sorry Jayne, I didn't mean for any of that to happen. I just thought..." She felt as if a hand were crushing her chest as she heard him begin to swear. Not loud but with great variety and force.

He crawled out of bed and got dressed still cursing.

Inara hadn't meant to say anything, she had wanted to let him work through it before she intruded, but as he headed for the door she couldn't hold it back. "Jayne!" He stopped and looked back at her frowning.

Unable to look him in the face she looked down, her tears broke free from the restraining eyelashes and ran down her face to drip onto her wringing hands. "Are you leaving?" Inara's voice cracked with her effort to keep from sobbing.

When Inara had yelled his name, Jayne had been frowning at having his train of thought broken, not at Inara. Her whimpered question and the broken little motion she made with her hands made him realize that she was asking much more than if he were leaving the room. Suddenly realizing how his departure must have felt to her on top of so much worry, his face cleared and he sat and pulled her into his lap. Lifting her chin with the touch of his fingertips he began kissing away the tears. Entwining his fingers in hers he placed his hand on her heart. "I've seen inside you here, and you've seen inside me, how could you possibly think that I would go away because of anything you did by accident." He smiled as her ran a knuckle across her lower lip. "Hell băobèi, I'm not sure you could run me off on purpose."

Jayne ran his fingers through her hair and down her back soothing her as she buried her face in his neck. He held her tight until she stopped shivering. He pulled back from her. "Sorry to make you worry so bad, I just needed to go walk around or lift while I think about things."

He pressed his lips to hers, plundering her mouth with his tongue and let lose all of his desire for her to feel. His hands roamed her body, caressing her breasts and feeling her nipples harden against his palms, then gliding away to cup her rear and squeeze, moving down to stroke the back of her knees. Finally they broke apart gasping for breath. He took her hand and wrapped her fingers around himself, squeezing her hand tight so she could feel him throbbing in her hand.

He stopped her as she reached to unbutton his pants. "Now are you convinced that I'll be back after I do some thinking?"

She bit her lip, her hunger showing clearly in her darkened eyes. "Yes. I really am sorry I..."

He put his finger to her lips. "Shh nothing to be sorry for, I would've told you to say exactly what you did if I had been there. Although you pull that go se acting like you think I'm gonna turn tail and run off over some little fèi huà again and you're gonna find it hard to sit down for awhile." He punctuated his comment with a sharp swat to her backside. She bit her lip, the gleam in her eye back as she considered the new possibilities.

Jayne tucked her in "now go to sleep, I need to go think some."

"I'm sorry I doubted Jayne, this whole day has been unlike me. I just don't have the reference points that I'm used to using to be confident and strong. Feeling this way about life and about someone and being happy. It seems so new and fragile, like it could break and disappear as quickly as it came. I never would have worked myself into such a state before.

He kissed her palms and folded her hands between his. "Takes time to rebuild and trust something new, I feel some of that myself sometimes when I look at you and wonder if you are going to like whoever I end up being. I can imaging how difficult it is for you since you feel you are losing what you had on top of the new. I'm just getting more of myself back. But you don't have to worry about me, you'll have to chase me off with a gun if you want me to go away."

"You don't have to worry about me either băobèi, I know that how I feel for you is real." She grinned up at him, "now go do your thinking and get back here, don't you know its not nice to get a lady in such a state and run off?"


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Jayne had lifted weights until most of the crew went to bed. For the last couple of hours he had wandered the ship, not really aware of much outside his mind. He looked around. Qīngwā cào de liúmáng, this was the third time he had ended up standing in the center of Inara's shuttle. His back straightened, his head came up and his expression changed. Mal or Zoe would have recognized the expression on Jayne's face from the war. It was the expression of a hunter. There was no mercy and no forgiveness in his eyes. "If I'm on the payroll, guess I'd better get to work" he muttered.

Flipping on the Cortex, Jayne began keying in an excruciatingly long series of access codes. He stopped frequently to make calculations then continued. A screen came up with several of his pictures from the time he was 6 through 14 at six month intervals, then beginning again at age 20 with inconsistent interval's of anywhere from six months to two years, the last taken six months previous. He nodded and began to read rapidly through the screens examining closely the documents that provided his authority for his current assignment. He sat back stunned. He had been given nearly carte blanch access to Protector's resources.

He sat forward and switched from the Protector's database to the Companion's. Quickly flipping to Inara's file, he sat forward smiling as he scrolled through the picture's of the lovely and obviously precocious child Inara had been. Flipping to her data screens he read through much slower than he had his own. He had always known she was special but that didn't even begin to cover it. He sat staring thoughtfully into the black.

Closing out Inara's file he switched into the Companion's Guild client database. He slipped below that to client confirmation logs and scrolled back to 15 days previously and carefully examined the entries up through the date of Inara's capture. Next he slipped into Inara's log files and checked the same dates.

He flipped on the wave and keyed in an id.

A young woman's face appeared. "Interrogative access priority."

"Jayne Cobb, refer Activation status, mark 15 hours ago."

She typed on her keyboard, then looked up. "Level requested?"

"Primary, code 'Drill bit'"

"Begin confirmation"

"Mary had a little lamb its ..."

"Identity verified. Primary is not available at this time."

"Request Secondary, flag Primary for referral."

"Connecting"

The woman' face was replaced by that of an attractive man in his 50's with a salt and pepper beard and a shaved head. "Cobb?"

"Yes."

"Damn man your file has more red lights blinking on it than I've ever seen, what do you have for me?"

"You have a problem."

Secondary chuckled. "You been out there a long time boy. Doubt its us that has the problem."

"Mark, record on ...Your database has been compromised. A Companion verified client suitability 14.3 days ago and was given positive response. The client record she accessed is not in your database any longer. Inara Serra confirmed suitability of client Jonathan Randolf III and received five star referral flagged with multiple confirmations from other Companions. Client matching identity attempted slaver snatch. Client has been terminated. Immediate examination of all access attempted and those with access must be initiated immediately. Mark my file highest priority available."

As Jayne had spoken the man straightened up his mouth doing its best to imitate a fish. "But that's ... I can't flag it that high on my authority!"

Cold as ice Jayne responded, "check my file, page 3 line 6, I'm not asking you to flag it on your authority. Do we have a problem?"

Secondary responded, "No Sir!"

"Reports will be expected at six hour intervals. End record, mark flag to Primary priority code alpha."

Jayne sat back and flicked the Wave off. He then began the tedious process of removing all the log files that had been created during his access.

Done with the file cleanup Jayne stood and stretched, popping noises coming from his shoulders and spine. He hated Core work. He turned to find River watching him, an eyebrow raised. He grinned at her as he bent and stretched out his spine. "Wondered if you were watching that."

"Wasn't fast enough to get it all, your encryption was impressive. It is fortunate I cannot read you or you couldn't have hidden any of it."

"Wouldn't have mattered to me. I didn't think it would be good enough to hide any of it from you." He shrugged.

River shifted slightly. "I need to know what you are."

Jayne's face slid into a feral grin as he moved away from the console. "I'm a Protector, you know what we protect?"

River frowned and shifted again to stay in an attack stance. "No."

"Companion's." Shaking his head to clear his expression, Jayne moved into a non-threatening stance. "Sorry, I'm not really done re-integrating, they shouldn't have activated me, I'm not very stable yet. The Bai Chi on the Wave put me in an aggressive state." Jayne flopped down on the couch. "I still have your hackles up?"

River took a deep breath and relaxed. "I am fine, your stance engaged my programing. Probability exceeds 90 that was the intent of your stance, in order to expose aggressors."

"Good call, used it on hoe-tze duh pee-gou there to see if he'd behave or get belligerent. Didn't realize I was still projecting when I got up."

River curled up on the couch with him. "What did you find out?"

"I saw on Inara's core that you pulled her log files, I'm guessing to get an id on her client?"

River nodded, "No record of him on planet."

"Inara confirmed him against the Guild database as well and there isn't a record there any more either."

"There is something you aren't saying."

Jayne ran his fingers through her hair when she tipped over to lay her head on his leg. "Gorram genius' can't hide anything from them even when they can't read you" he chuckled. "Seems like Inara isn't the first Companion the slavers have made a run at, but this was the most complicated run, the others were just snatch and grabs when the Companion was out in not so public, public. Lets keep that between you and me for now mèi mei she has enough on her mind right now and we really don't know how that plays into the glove thing either."

River laced her fingers through Jayne's and settled their hands on her stomach. "What do you plan to do?"

"Shake some trees and see what falls out." Jayne kissed her on the forehead and got up, "But first I think this place needs redecorated, Inara isn't comfortable in here anymore, you wanna help?"

Several hours later a disheveled River stood , her arms around Jayne's waist and his arm over her shoulder as they examined their handywork. River glowed with satisfaction, "Yes this is more her now." The room was still sexy since Inara just flat out was sexy but now rather than being such a deeply sensual room designed for clients, it was a light, care-free and joyously sexy room that sparkled with life. River had uncovered some tapestries and covers that Inara had obviously purchased for a time when she would have more than one room to decorate and mixed together with some of the older items the room was quite lovely.

"She'll have to do some shopping to finish it up if she decides to keep it this way long, but I think she'll find it comfortable for now." Jayne was confident his ai ren would approve, after all taking care of her was what the Guild had trained him for all those years back. "I think I'll go see if I can be sneaky enough to move her up to this bed without waking her. Thank you for your help Mei Mei." Jayne kissed River on the cheek.

Inara woke slowly and stretched, growling her disappointment that Jayne wasn't in bed with her. She propped herself up on her elbows to look around. Something wasn't right where in the hell...She shrieked in pleasure and hopped to her knees. She jumped out of bed and stood turning in a circle in the center of the shuttle, it was glorious, exactly how she felt!

Jayne sat with his back to the console, his face split with an ear to ear grin, reveling in Inara's pleasure. Inara finally noticed him and with another shriek dashed across the room to pounce on him. She grabbed his face and began kissing him passionately. Jayne stood and she wrapped her legs around him, whispering I love it, I love it, between kisses. He carried her to the bed and they picked up where they had left off the night before.


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Inara snuggled her back into Jayne's chest as she tightened her grip on his hand, pressing it harder against her breast. Jayne licked a drop of sweat from Inara's neck, sighing at the shiver it sent through her. They were spooning on the bed after having spent a sweaty morning christening her redecorated shuttle. Inara nearly blushed at the memory, it being the first time she could remember abandoning herself entirely to the physical aspect of sex. Most of her life had been wrapped up in controlled sexual situations, or at least controlled from her side, even with Jayne to this point, it had been the ritual and then controlled due to her injuries.

Raising her head she looked around the shuttle and chuckled. "I think it needs redecorating again." There wasn't a surface left in the shuttle that was large enough for her body to fit on, and a few that didn't look probable from a distance, that still had anything on it other than a pillow here and there. Her eye stopped at a small table that didn't seem like much, except it was exactly the right height for her to bend hmmm" She growled at the memory and ground her bottom back against Jayne.

Jayne returned the pressure, "Gorram woman, ain't you had enough yet? You're gonna have to give me a day or two to recover."

She knew he was lying, she could tell from the pressure against her that it wouldn't be nearly that long. She giggled. She had more than a few aches and stings herself and a very unique feeling of total satisfaction. "How about a compromise, I'll give you as much time as you want, or until after lunch whichever comes first."

Her face took on a more serious expression. "Did your redecorating have anything to do with what happened yesterday and your needing to think?"

She felt his nod as his whiskers rubbed up and down her cheek.

"I reckon we need to do some talkin about things."

She stiffened slightly, then relaxed back as he pulled her tightly to him.

"Nothing you need to worry over, I have to explain a few things to you about Protectors in general and about Companions, or at least some Companions. Something you need to know up front though." Jayne took a deep breath, this might be the hardest thing for her to accept. She was very used to being in complete control and it might be a major sticking point in her acceptance. "I'm going to share things with you that Protectors aren't generally allowed to share with their Companions, but there will be holes in what I tell you and I need you to trust me when I say I won't answer a question you have. I don't want to lie to you about anything, so rather than do that I want to be able to just tell you when I won't answer."

Inara let go of his hand and rolled over to face him. She threw her leg over his hip and pulled her lower body close to him, put her hands on his chest and studied his face. "Jayne the phrasing of that statement alone brings up many questions."

He gave her a wry grin. "It does at that, but I think the things I _will _be telling you will explain most of those."

Her study of his face continued for several heartbeats. Finally she pressed her lips to his and leaned back. "Ok."

Having prepared for at least some argument or discussion her answer caught him by complete surprise.

Inara laughed outright at the expression on his face. "Ai ren, how can I not trust you, especially when you asked in order to avoid having to lie."

Jayne smoothed her cheek with his hand, then cupping her neck in his hand he pulled her to him for a long lingering kiss. His tongue slipped between her lips to caress her tongue and he moaned when he tasted himself on her breath.

Pulling back he smiled at the sight of her closed eyes, her lips still partially opened and her face nuzzling his hand.

As he saw her eyes refocusing on him he began. "What do you know about Protectors, besides the little I mentioned?"

Inara paused to think. "Looking back I guess nothing that wasn't a rumor. I've never heard anyone other than trainees say anything about them at all."

Jayne smirked, "They still have that go se about a 'killing rage' floating around?"

Inara gasped "That isn't real? It must be, I saw it on your face when you were ... just before you told me about yourself."

Jayne's face hardened slightly. "I suspect you are the only one alive that has seen that look. I...I don't really know for sure but my best guess is thats the last thing the slavers I have killed ever saw.

"Oh." Inara blushed slightly at having believed schoolgirl rumors.

"Don't be embarrassed, those rumors are spread intentionally to give people the impression that they know what we are and avoid too much curiosity." Jayne chuckled at her embarrassment. "Who would you suspect are our clients?"

"I would have said they were the same as a Companion's clients only perhaps more long term and in some instances higher profile where people might need more subtle personal protection, but something you said earlier makes me think that perhaps your clients are Companions. Which really doesn't make sense."

"It will in a moment. Even the name we have been given is partially misleading. "'Protectors, implies a physical shield and violence to a certain extent. That is part of our mandate, we are the dark side of the guild. Have you ever wondered what happened to a client when you invoke the Guild's protection? Especially, the repercussions beyond just a black flag in the client directory."

"We were taught that the repercussions were social, occasionally economical with fines and of course possibly some legal involvement if they violated the laws related to the Guild. There was always a hint of a darker level but I've never heard it detailed." Inara was frowning with the effort of reforming some of what she had always assumed about how the guild functioned.

"The largest part of what Protectors do is in the darker edge you mentioned. People visited by a Protector will likely never mistreat another woman, let alone a Companion. I'm merely relating what I learned in training as I have never led one of those visits."

Inara was curious about Jayne's use of the work 'led' as it implied he may have been along as a trainee at some point. She decided it was a digression that wasn't relevant at the moment. "You said it was the largest part, I presume that what they activated you to do here is the other part?"

Jayne caressed her face, running his thumb gently across her lower lip. "By far the most import part of what a Protector is trained for is helping Companions heal. It is the least often needed part of our calling but of critical importance to the Guild."

Tears gathered in Inara's eyes as she examined her ai ren in a new light. "I've been to Guild healers and psychs for ... before, Jayne, I don't think they were Protectors."

He winced inside at the break in her voice and kissed her gently. "You might be surprised, but in general you are probably right. As difficult as those situations are, they are situations you have received a considerable amount of training in dealing with and unfortunately they are expected to arise on occasion. The healing we are trained for is related to what you are experiencing now."

Confused, Inara frowned. "You mean being taken by slavers? I wouldn't think that would happen enough to justify keeping people trained just to handle it."

"Not that part of what you are going through. Tell me how a Priestess differs from a regular Companion in your mind, Inara. Not in position but in person."

"I don't ..." Inara tried to relax and follow where Jayne wanted to take the conversation instead of pushing him to answer her question. "Well, they are simply amazing. With most Companions no matter how good we are there is a sense of performance in some of what we do. Another Companion can sometimes see the slight inconsistency between the behavior and the feelings underneath. When you watch a Priestess do a ritual or ceremony it isn't as if they are performing them, it feels like they are sharing a part of themselves with you."

"Why did you leave the Core?"

At this additional digression Inara's resolve to go with the flow faded. "Jayne, what are you doing, why are you bouncing around all over, can't you just answer my question?" Inara started to pull away from Jayne and was surprised when he wouldn't let her move away.

"Wait. Please Inara, just go with me for a moment longer, it will be best for you to see the connection rather than me just telling you. You'll understand when we get there." She relaxed back into his arms and Jayne kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you băobèi."

She answered with a sigh, "I've told you some of it. There was something missing from my life as a Companion. It was like the difference I explained between a Companion and a Priestess, I felt like being a Companion only went to a certain depth in my life. And the depth that was missing is what I have found lately, playing and just enjoying people without having to have my mask between them and myself all the time."

"You realize don't you that that was why Mal was able to bedevil you so badly with his whore comments and judgments against Companions. And also why you took it so long. The crack in your belief made you wonder if he was right."

Inara's eyes widened as she considered that idea. It felt right when placed against her willingness to keep going back to him in spite of how he effected her feelings about herself.

"Given what you just said, how would Shepard Book describe what you were feeling when you left the Core?" Jayne asked gently, hoping she would see it herself.

"I ... I guess he would call it a loss of faith." Inara chuckled at the idea of Book calling a Companion losing her belief in being a Companion, a loss of faith.

Jayne waited patiently to see if he had given her enough pieces of her answer. As she started to fidget while waiting on him to continue he began to add more to the picture. "Do you know how a Companion gets elevated to Priestess?"

"Of course, the Guild leaders make a selection, the Companion is notified. They usually go into seclusion for a time and then we have a ceremony investing them. Did you want the actual process the leaders go through to choose a Priestess? Because they don't tell us that, sometimes you become aware that someone has been selected, but not usually. There had been some talk that I was being considered at one point but I didn't feel prepared for that. Since I've been gone so long I doubt I'm still under consideration, if I ever was."

"No I don't need you to explain that part. It is never explained to you because it doesn't happen." Jayne frowned. In fact, if there was outright discussion at Madressa House that she was being considered, the house was in violation of several Guild Laws. He began to get angry, they may have caused irreparable harm. Not to mention putting Inara in extreme risk.

"What are you talking about Jayne, of course they have a method for choosing a Priestess."

"Actually the ceremony is an acknowledgment of something a woman has chosen on her own not something decided by anyone else." Ai ya, he wasn't up to this yet, she deserved a better Protector.

The fools at Madressa had chased her to the Rim when they discussed her potential where she could hear about it. He would make sure an Inquisitor visited them shortly. She had been fighting alone with her loss of faith, to preserve her position in the Guild, for so long that she couldn't see the possibility that she needed to lose faith in order to really have faith. A woman couldn't have her own faith when she had been indoctrinated from the time she was a child. In order to become a Priestess she had to lose her faith and her mask and finally become a complete person who had a foundation in love and joy then find her faith in her life, then _maybe_ she would choose the Guild. Not all did. Some elected to take their lives in different directions but as far as he knew all were given the support they needed to heal from the loss and choose that new direction.

This was the difference Inara saw between a Priestess who's ceremony was a sharing of self rather than a repetition, such as the weekend worshiper performed. This was the healing the Protector was trained to accomplish, to help a woman heal who had lost her faith and help her find the joy in life so that she could make her own choice. It wasn't for him to care whether she became Priestess or decided to continue life in another direction. He was to help her heal and become herself.

"Inara it seems that when you describe a Priestess you see in her a depth that you feel you are missing, am I correct?"

"Yes Jayne thank you for stating my weakness so bluntly, that is in essence correct." She snipped at him.

"And you feel that they got something from within the Guild that you haven't found? A lesson or experience to help them be what they are?"

"No, actually, I don't. I think it is a lack in myself. Somehow I'm just not able to get where they are."

"And if I stated as fact that you were wrong, what would you feel the next most likely reason would be?"

"Well, then I guess it would be what you said, something they got from the Guild that I haven't yet."

"And if I made yet another statement of fact that you haven't missed anything in the Guild to make the difference, what would you think next?"

Inara shrugged, "I suppose the next thing would be that I had missed something outside of the Guild, although thats preposterous."

"What conclusion do you draw then if I tell you that up until a few days ago, when you discussed the joy you were feeling and when you said that 'going back to the incompleteness you had felt for so long was not acceptable', your last statement was correct?"

As she puzzled through Jayne's confusing statement Inara felt a pressure in her chest and her breathing began to speed up. She remembered the conversations Jayne was referring to, she had never felt the completeness or satisfaction ...when she had been _acting as a Companion, in other words in the Guild! _She remembered something Jayne had said earlier, about the ceremony for Priestesses acknowledging a choice they had made. What she was feeling wasn't against the Guild but merely a final experience necessary before she could _choose! _

Anxiety filled her as her whole world rotated, the meaning of all that she had experienced and worried over ever since leaving the Core shifted. Her concept of what the Guild was shredded and began to reknit.

Her gaze locked on the blue eyes watching with concern, holding on to the one steady thing in her verse, she locked her mouth to his. She thrust her tongue deep inside his mouth needing the physical contact as an anchor. Her fingers slipped into his short hair gripping and holding on for dear life.

Despite the seriousness of the conversation they had been having Jayne responded in instant arousal to the frantic thrusting of her tongue. When he hardened against her, she slid herself back and forth along his length and eased back from his mouth enough to whisper "Please". Pulling his hips back Jayne caressed the length of her back with his hand to cup her rear and position himself. He slid inside her, moving slowly to prolong the sensation.

Inara's mind began to smooth out with the delectable sensation of Jayne entering and slowly filling her. Her breathing settled to match the exquisitely slow pace he set. As she calmed she rested her forehead against his chin and let his movement sooth her. Locking him in place with her leg and stopping him fully inside her, she raised her head. "I may need you to lie about this but I have to ask, is this?" She place her hand on his heart to express what she couldn't bring herself to say out loud.

"No, love, Protectors' relationships with Companions are as varied as there are people. This is pure us băobèi." He told the truth, a Protector was trained to be able to offer this if needed, but their gift to the Companion was protection from the world, space and time to heal and a confidante that knew about their world and could discuss it with them as they discovered themselves.

Nodding to herself in relief she kissed him gently and laid her forehead against his chin. Recognizing that this time was completely about her need, not for release but for security while her world was in flux, Jayne continued the slow rhythmic movement, reveling in her silky heat and her soft breath against his chest.

Inara stood next to the bed holding the tray of sandwiches she had made for Jayne. He lay sprawled face down under a sheet, snoring. Her expression was soft as she watched him sleep. She started as she realized she was staring and turned to set the tray on the table where he could reach it when he woke. She had dozed after their conversation but had woken after a few minutes and needed to be busy. After cleaning herself up she had gone and eaten and brought him a tray back.

She had started restoring order from the devastation she and Jayne had wreaked on the shuttle when River knocked. Inara opened the door whispering, "come in Mei Mei but be quiet please, Jayne is still sleeping."

River looked around the room, "You did not like the new decorations? Jayne and I thought you would." She sniffed the air, still heavy with the scent of musk. Then grinned "Oh, you liked it very much. But I don't understand why they are so damaged if you were happy."

Inara laughed quietly, "Not damaged Mei Mei, just mussed a little from our play. Thank you so much for helping Jayne, it was perfect, I absolutely love it." She hugged River close.

River walked to the bed and sat with her knees pulled up under her chin in the corner furthest from Jayne, watching him sleep. "He became very different last night."

Pulling up a chair near River, Inara sat next to her and watched Jayne sleep too, after all it was what she had wanted to do anyway. "How do you mean? Are you able to read him now?"

"No his mind is still quietly repeating the gibberish from before. He accepted himself as a Protector. Now he sends off different colors than before." She slid her small foot over to pass next to his as she rotated her leg back and forth. "He makes me think of warmth and comfort and safety. I think the Guild will be happy but not happy with him."

Inara said "Why do you think the Guild will be happy, not happy, with him?"

"The Guild will be happy in him for what he can do for you and them, but he was meant to consider them his family and he will cut them like a surgeon for their failures, without the compassion of a beloved son."

"How do you know what is going on between him and the Guild?"

"He was on the Cortex for many hours last night. He is very good, I was only able to work fast enough to decrypt parts of what he did, but he let me watch after he brought you up to bed. He is not happy with them, they have gotten overconfident and sloppy. They have allowed decay to creep in around the edges. I cannot tell you more by his request." River was pleased when Inara wasn't offended.

"River. You gonna pick us a spot to land sometime today?" Mal's voice came over the com.

Careful not to disturb the bed River ran to the com, "On my way baba." She grinned at Inara, I think I have found us a place in a field with trees and a river!" She left for the bridge at a run.

Inara realized she had been sitting watching Jayne for at least five minutes. She shrugged, if she couldn't do anything but watch him, she may as well give it up. Quickly she threw off her clothes and slipped back into bed. Gently she lowered herself on to him her chest against his back and fitted herself to him exactly, her arms and legs on his, her hips cradling his rear. She felt gravity pull her against him giving them a continuous connection from her hands to her cheek resting on his shoulder to the tops of her feet pressed against his calves. She nearly groaned with pleasure when he shifted and the muscles of his back rippled down the front of her body. Her breathing slowed to match his and she slept.


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The ramp to Serenity's cargo bay came down and revealed the perfection of River's landing. The bottom of the ramp led out under the canopy of a dozen or so mature trees shading a bend in the stream. The bend of the stream (which River insisted was a river and not a stream) widened, smoothing out the water and making the perfect swimming hole.

Kaylee, hands in her back pockets, stood at the foot of the ramp, feeling the dappled sunlight dance across her face and the breeze shift her hair. She took a deep breath letting the fresh scent of earth and green wash through her lungs. "River, I reckon you couldn'ta done a spec better!"

River paused in her argument with Simon over the exact volume of water passing required to consider a body of water a river, to beam a huge smile in Kaylee's direction.

"What kind of watch you thinking on Mal? Jayne watched as Inara walked towards the river, her skirt brushing the leaves and catching on twigs.

"I reckon security screen for largish animals and one gun up at all times till we lock up for the night should do it." Mal yelled to the rest of the crew, "Listen up folks, I mean for us all to have a fine time here but don't nobody go wandering off on their own. You get out mor'n about 50 yards and you best have a com, gun and someone with you. Preferably someone 'at can shoot said gun. River we got any particular animals on this planet of the poisonous or otherwise unpleasant variety?"

"Normal terraforming range, no notes about special imports, was always intended to be farming so mostly smaller predators."

"Alright then, Jayne put out those sensors, I know they're go se, but I want 'em out anyway." Jayne grinned as Mal ran over Jayne's normal argument out of habit. "Keep an eye out for sign that anyone comes around here much. Rest of you go about settin up a camp, reckon we'll want to do most of our eatin and settin out here and we'll be here awhile so lets make ourselves comfortable." Mal checked the light, looked like if they got themselves set up quick he could get some fishin in before dinner, maybe even have some for dinner. "Move, lets get to havin fun."

Everyone grinned at Mal's need to be bossy even when it was something they all wanted to do.

"I'll take first watch if ya like Mal" Jayne said.

The offer caught Mal off guard and his mouth open since he was getting ready to say just that. Jayne didn't ever volunteer, not for anything let alone taking first watch during time off. "Good idea."

Jayne called Kaylee over. "You reckon you might have some clothes at'd fit Inara?" At her surprised look he explained "On account of her not really having much for this type of place and she ain't been feeling that comfortable in her own stuff lately."

"Can't imagine she'd want ta wear any a my stuff but I'll offer" Kaylee said, doubtful that Inara would take her up on it. Jayne kissed her on the forehead and gave her a quick hug. "Thank you mèi mei."

Jayne watched Kaylee run over to Inara. Inara's smile beamed in acceptance and the two ran towards Kaylee's bunk holding hands and giggling.

Jayne took his time placing the sensors. He walked over the land looking for any ravines or gullies that would allow someone to sneak up on the ship. He found no sign that anyone had ever been in the area, although there were some animal runs. The tracks were mostly some sort of small deer type animal, fox and rabbit, and led to drinking points at the river. He was going to have to look a little further out, if there were small dear, he hadn't seen a predator for them yet and something had to be eating them or there would be many more tracks.

Since the sensors weren't all that hard to defeat he put effort into making them inconspicuous, hoping that if someone did come along they wouldn't notice them.

He heard shouting and laughter from the direction of camp, he smiled, sounded like River and Kaylee weren't wasting anytime.

Mal was frowning at him as he walked into camp. "Started to think you went hunting on us Jayne what took so long?"

Jayne told Mal his findings and explained about hiding the sensors.

Not having spent much time with Jayne since he got back on the ship, Mal had trouble accepting the proactive Jayne and just stomped off muttering about "taking so gorram long", to grab his fishing gear. He cheered up as he headed off towards the river upstream from all the screaming and shouting.

"Problem sir?" Zoe startled him, she was sitting in a chair tipped back against a tree deep in the shade. A small table with a bottle of whiskey and cup set next to her.

He stopped. Zoe had taken to drinking more after Miranda, she wasn't drinking like she had been at first and she wasn't ever unfit for her duties, but he didn't really ever see her without her bottle when there was any relaxing to be done. He shook his head "ain't quite settled into a Jayne that thinks ahead."

Zoe pointed her chin toward Inara playing in the water with River and Kaylee. She was wearing t-shirt and panties the same as the other two girls. "Finding it all unsettling myself. Seems to be to the good mostly but disturbing all the same."

Neither of them were much for change. It hit them hard when things worked differently than they had come to expect. Since the war, they both appreciated consistency, the unexpected tended to get a man, or woman, killed. Mal waved towards the whiskey, "ifn ya got another cup you can come fishin with me. I got two poles. I aim to catch some dinner." Wash had been good for Zoe in more than a few ways, he hadn't realized how solitary Zoe was until Wash was gone and she went back to the way she had been before.

Zoe grinned, knowing exactly how much dinner he was likely to catch. "You go ahead and find a spot, could be I'll wander over later and see if I can't pick out some that have passed out from laughing at you."

He gave her a hurt look. "Don't let 'em drown each other if ya can help it."

Zoe watched Jayne as he actually patrolled. He had apparently set himself a patrol pattern and kept an eye in all directions. Changed up his pace and order good so it wouldn't be predictable either. Didn't just set in one place trying to ogle the girls in wet shirts. She frowned to herself. He was doing everything right, so why was she bothered by it? She realize what it was. He did things right, but she didn't rightly know if it could be trusted. Wouldn't bode well for any of them if they all got to trusting he'd do one thing and suddenly he went back to being regular Jayne. Jayne's path finally took him over to the river and he looked across examining the other side. Finally he did look at the women when someone splashed him. Spent some time looking at all of 'em too, before he moved on. Zoe chuckled, at least one thing hadn't completely changed about him, she didn't want to consider how disturbed she'd be if he took to not even lookin. Maybe Doc would have some idea how steady he would be.

Jayne told himself he was just going over by the river to look over the other side as part of his patrol, but truth was, three women in wet shirts and panties was too much to ask him to ignore. He might have gone through many changes the last few days but a part of him that was consistent no matter what, was an appreciation of beautiful women. He'd never been one to get picky either, most women were beautiful to him in one way or another. He had gotten his excuse to look them over when River splashed him. All three were sexy as hell too, with their shirts all soaked through and stuck to their bodies.

Inara smirked while she watched Jayne admire them. He might be more polite, but he was still Jayne. Well she'd give him something to admire. She kicked off the bottom and slid into a leisurely backstroke that took her right in front of him. She felt a glowing feeling inside as she saw his eyes lock onto her and drink up the view. She saw him wink at her as he tried to inconspicuously adjust himself before heading back out on his rounds. She giggled and promptly pounced on Kaylee pushing her under. As she tried to swim away she was suddenly pulled under by River from below.

"Hey Doc." Simon nearly jumped out of his skin when Zoe spoke. With the ship shut down and everyone mostly outside he'd settled into the quiet. He so rarely got to experience silence anymore and it had reminded him of a small lab he'd had at home.

"Sorry, didn't mean to be sneakin up on ya." Zoe's grin was at odds with her apology.

"The quiet, it took me back. I was a long way away." Simon smiled for things past.

"Why ain't you out swimming with Kaylee and them?"

Simon indicated the Cortex screen he had been studying. "Jayne managed to get me access to some information that might help me figure out what those chemicals are doing. I haven't found anything to help so far but I do have a name for the drug, TLB 1641. I'm hoping there will be at least information how long it will last."

"Speaking on Jayne, you mind if I ask about him?"

"Well, I can't violate my Doctor, patient confidentiality, what did you want to know?"

"Not so much him personally, more like his condition. You had said you read up on it some."

"Yes, I have, and I think I can answer questions about that. What did you want to know?"

"Got to wondering how much we can trust him." Zoe hurried to explain, "not his intent so much, more his actions. Say he does something in a right way, a way different from Jayne the way he was. He likely to do it that way again?"

"My best guess, and it is a guess, would be that things he does without thinking... which was pretty much everything with old Jayne," Simon smirked, "rather then, what he does automatically will be reliable. Things that require thought may not be as consistent. Do you have a specific example we could discuss?"

Zoe explained about the patrolling, "normally Jayne would have argued against the need, then spent every second that me or the Capt'n weren't actually watching him, tryin to see the women folk better."

Simon nodded in thought, "I would put that in the category of reliable. He is doing what it means to him to have watch. I can't answer for the volunteering, that would come under conscious decision based on his needs or concerns of the moment."

Zoe considered his comments. "Thanks Doc, helps some."

"I think the best thing to do is try not to have old expectations and let your trust build like you would with a new person regarding most actions. It won't be the easiest thing to do, since he is still Jayne and we are used to him being a certain way. Once we see his new patterns of behavior a few times I don't believe he'll suddenly go back to doing something his old way."

"That's something anyway. You best get out there and help them all drowned one another, I 'spect Kaylee's lookin for ya."

Zoe swung through the galley to pick up a cup for Mal.

Mal settled back in his seat at the table patting his stomach. The fish had been right tasty. They'd been worth all the work he'd put into cleaning 'em and such. He made a face a Zoe's smirk, of course he hadn't caught a gorram one of 'em. He'd made the mistake of betting Zoe that whoever caught the least had to clean 'em all. Seemed like the yúbèn de wángbādàn fish had practically jumped out of the river into her lap.

"Hey Now! Put her down Jayne!" Mal yelled as Jayne threw a screaming River over his shoulder and headed for the river.

"But Mal, she smooshed potatoes in my hair," Jayne whined.

"Reckon its you needs to be in the river then, put her down" Mal said in his 'I'm The Captain' voice.

Jayne put River down with muttering about dire repercussions and stomped off to the river.

Noticing all of the women at the table looking the same direction he realized that even Zoe was watching with a certain appreciation as Jayne stripped down and dove in.

Inara, Kaylee and River did a bunch of smirking at each other, then Kaylee grabbed Simon by the arm and dragged him as they all headed for the river. Inara and River stripped right down and jumped in while Kaylee fought an arguing Simon as she pulled his clothes off and pushed him in. Then she skinned out of her clothes and did a cannonball into the midst of them all.

"You got any a that whiskey left Zoe? I conjure we got a ship full of folks going through their second childhood."

"First sir."

"First?"

"Yes sir, 'ceptin Kaylee who ain't rightly got done with her first, aint a one of the others ever had a childhood. Well maybe Simon, but you notice how he tried to fight it."

Mal chuckled, "Yea he put up quite fight over his drawers, thought he might actually win for a minute."

The sun slipped away over the horizon. "You go find that whiskey, got some in my bunk you could grab if 'tother is gone, I mean to take some towels and blankets out there, suspect the kids'll be cold when they finally get out of the water."


	19. epilog

Epilog

The crew of Serenity settled into a comfortable routine. Most would get up and have coffee then go for a morning swim. Then breakfast followed by a hard day of lounging and maybe Frisbee for those feeling energetic, or in Mal's case fishing. He finally started catching some and they had fish most days. Inara spent time sewing, she was altering her clothes and she had turned some of her full length pants and dresses into shorts and skirts, and just playing with folks.

After lunch there'd be more swimming and laying about, occasionally someone would slip into the ship to do chores or little things that they'd been meaning to get to. Everyone got so they would try and be a little noisy anytime they got out of immediate camp just to give those that might have slipped away together to play some warning. It had taken a few slightly embarrassing occasions for them to work that out. They all pretty much chipped in on making dinner and cleanup. Then usually a fire, using the deadwood they had slowly cleaned up throughout the trees, with Jayne playing guitar.

The impromptu skinny dipping the first night had stuck and mostly folks didn't wear much except when it was chilly, which was only in the morning or after the sun went down. Inara had brought out several sarongs and with the exception of Simon, who always had at least boxers on, thats pretty much all most wore. It had taken Mal and Zoe a day or two longer to ease into and they still mostly dressed if they weren't actually swimming or going to and from.

Simon had tried to bully River into more clothes but she really didn't like to wear much to start with so he didn't have a prayer of getting her to wear clothes when no one else would. Mal tried to support Simon but it was a pretty half hearted effort, he was looking at Inara at the time and short of making everyone dress, he could hardly get a wind up about just River having to be dressed.

Of course whoever had watch would but on boots, shorts and a shirt, the same for those that felt like wandering out into the prairie. Since it was spring, the grass hadn't gotten tall yet and it was more like a huge lawn. Mal, Zoe and Jayne always had a gun to hand, though so far nothing had happened to require them.

Only Simon and Jayne had spent much time in the ship. Simon looking for more information on the TLB 1641, and Jayne communicating with the Guild and sorting through the intelligence they gathered.

Mal watched his family playing as he took his turn at watch. Zoe, wŏ de mā, actually playing Frisbee with Kaylee, Inara and Simon sitting on a blanket under a tree chatting, and River and Jayne off swimming. He wondered what had happened to them in the last week and a half. It wasn't just Jayne and Inara who where different. They had all settled into each other. They'd all been family, mostly, since Miranda, no doubt about that, but sometime while they had been in this place they'd stopped being distant relatives that had to watch out for each other and turned into folks that really cared about one another.

Zoe smiled more and didn't sit off to the side alone as much.

Hell, seemed like Simon had smoothed out a bit and didn't stick his foot in it with Kaylee so often, boy might even figure out how to ask her to marry him soon.

Even he could tell River was doing better. Not that she'd been doing poorly but she hadn't had a bad day once since they arrived and Simon said she was almost off all her meds. She was much more like a young woman than the slighty confused wise child she had seemed after Miranda. Still smart as dìyù but she didn't hide behind her hair and look away so much, just looked you in the eye.

Kaylee was still Kaylee of course, loved everyone, but he knew she could feel how much closer everyone felt.

He hadn't changed a bit though, he was still a crusty wáng bā dàn and it better not have been the nekkidness that made everyone all happy cuz once they got off this rock he was gonna make sure environmentals were turned down low enough that folks felt the need to dress. Couldn't run a professional ship with nekkid people running all over the place.

----\

A/N: TBC soon in next installment.

If you have enjoyed (or have criticism as to why not) please throw up a review, they fuel the writer's 'Verse. Thanks to Badkarma00 and Imatu for the constructive thoughts and encouragement.

Watch for the next installment to see the crew get back into the Black. They have to return Fechin's favor and Jayne starts to plan a counter attack against the ...(find that out too). Find out why Kaylee says "I ain't never seen the Capt'n turn that shade of red affor."

Character's etc all belong to Joss, as one of my favorite FanFic authors likes to say "I just like playing with em"


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